From the Shadows of My Heart I See Your Smile
by Engineer Jess
Summary: REVISED. A strange story about Warp Darkmatter; how he finds out that the evil side is maybe not the most intriguing, after all...
1. Zarah

**Author's**** Notes, 3.6. 2002:**

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I have revised the story by correcting an amount of grammar error terrors (mostly) and somewhat rewritten the plot. There were some, ahem, Mary Sueish features in my long-time fanfic character Zarah, so she needed some reparation. I did not know anything about the concept of 'Mary Sue', when once writing this, and certainly did not mention the own-created character to be anything like that.

What comes to the grammar, I can't with these English skills do anything perfect. Foreign language is always a foreign language. But, I've given a try. With pleasure I take advise, in every case.

Thanks to Captain Buzz Lightyear for his help concerning this story.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar, Choi Zarah G'Deneb © Engineer Jess 

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**EPISODE 1.**

  
  


From the Shadows of My Heart I See Your Smile...

  
  


* * *

1. Zarah

----Star Command HQ----

 A low humming reached XR's ear sensors as he was rolling towards one of the stock rooms of Star Command HQ. These spaces were situated in the belly of the enormous space ranger base.

"Yea, right, as the big-an'-oh-I'm-so-brave-ranger takes a holiday, I'm here to continue the work!" the robot moaned to himself, carrying a large toolbox of hi-tech widgets.

Buzz Lightyear, Mira Nova and the third Team Lightyear member Booster were all taking a semester from their strenuous work. But XR did not care where they were, only cursed the fact that mechas were made to toil, not to idle.

"Ho, ho, ho! Sensitize your sensors! The slave comes again!" XR laughed and entered the door from where the silent singing was coming.

There, in this half-dim chamber, a young woman was kneeled upon a cylinder-looking gadget. She had oily overalls on, hands also covered with heavy, black grease. She tried to use a pressure wrench to build her apparatus, but found the tool incapable of that job. As she heard XR's joking, she raised her head and delight widened her smile.

"Great! Finally they borrow me some real tools!"

She took the box XR was carrying and assorted all the strange-looking devices on the floor.

"Believe me, Z, it took hours of cunning pretexts and begging to get those things from the LGM's!" he sighed and gave a glance around the modest work place.

"I know. They take care of all the technical things and are angry if someone else tries to touch their domain!" the young woman tittered and wiped her forehead with a rag.

"But... I've got my work order from the Commander to build and plan this thing! So, I don't care a blasting pulsar about the LGM supremacy!"

"Hee, hee, Z, fighting against the orders?" XR was amused.

"No, no! I just don't get the point, why they're so keen on their branch that even borrowing tools is so difficult. And... would you stop calling me Z, it sounds like if I was some henchwoman of Zurg!"

 Choi Zarah G'Deneb, the tomboyish girl tinkering with the thingamajig, had just graduated from the polytechnics of d'Endor, her home planet. She was well-built, beautiful and slender, but had never caught up more height than barely five feet two inches. Her quite thick red hair ended a lot over her waistline and her green, profound eyes made a contrast with the copper colour of the lockings. A human she was, and that type that got burnt even after a small amount of sunbathing. Her ivory-pale skin did not tolerate much beach holidays. What came to her character, she was somewhat clumsy and occasionally absent-minded (like every technician tends to be). Ghosting skills would have come in handy at places, when she in her thoughts sometimes collided with doorframes and pot plants, while pondering some mathematical equation. As to make a conclusion about d'Endor, so that no one would not scratch his or her head why on earth she lived there, this rock in space had a small human colony among its natives, the Wewoks and Wungans.

 As Zarah graduated, she had got almost the best grades in her major, the energy economics science. She had been a promising inventor already on her first year of studies; she had won the intergalactic 'green energy competition' with an idea of producing electricity with the help of solar wind. Now Zarah -with that name people usually called her- was 24 years old and had done a labour agreement with Star Command, to be an energy-tech advisor and independent researcher. So she had left her home and rented a cheap apartment on Capital Planet, to be able to avoid too-long work travels.

 Her career had started with promising results. She had begun to make experiments with _landanah_. Landanah was a rare stone type that was found only in some parts of the galaxy. Nevertheless, the results had shown that it was an unbelievably efficient energy source, even more magnificent than the crystallic fusion crystals that were used this far. The complex flake structure of it could duplicate the energy of one laser beam to a million, maybe billion times more efficient. And it seemed that only a few kilos of it was needed, in order to produce the energy of an entire planet for fifty years.

 "Okay... I think I have to stop my work for today... I know I won't get this thing ready still maybe in weeks, but I'm just too eager to try..." Zarah stood up and shook some dust particles away from her overalls. She was currently working with a landanah source cylinder; one of the main components of the possible new energy reactor.

"Hey, the Big Guy asked you to visit his office!" XR noted beside her.

"Wonder what he might want, now. I thought I could fly home to watch the holo-telly!" she snorted. Though she was a keen on pottering about circuits, she was not a workaholic.

"You at least can go home! I know the next thing I've gotta do, is to wax the floor of the main entrance hall! Guess if that makes me feel high..." the android protested, rolling his eyes.

"What if I smuggle you to my place and you have a relaxing bubble bath...?" Zarah sniggered back.

"Okey-dokey, after that I don't have to work at all. Well, I think I stay here. Better to keep my electric network dry."

 Next, Zarah was taking long steps towards Commander Nebula's office. She had changed her shabby working clothes to her normal suit. This garment was a woman's suit costume, which made her look a bit coquette. But with that adjective no one could have actually described her, since her nature was quite shy.

She was directly invited to sit down as she entered Nebula's official sector.

"How's the building of the prototype reactor?" was the first question that was aimed at her.

"There we go... I can't get it ready by tomorrow", she sighed.

"I know that, but you don't have to worry about it. I'm not asking you to hesitate with it. I got something more urgent to tell." Nebula stood back against her, watching the galaxy shine through the large window. Now he turned about towards Zarah.

"Well...?" she spread her arms, looking shiftless.

"This information is highly classified. You must know that we sent an expedition group to the little moon of Xaneda... The geological measures had shown earlier that this bedrock would be an appropriate place to find the energy material we need..." he talked with a low voice, like being afraid of that the walls would have ears.

"Sure I do remember. It seems that there has been wished results, then, as you took this topic now forth", she assumed and crossed her fingers.

"Yes... yesterday I got an announcement that a huge occurrence of landanah has been found nearby the Deneverian cliffs, in the desert lands of the particular moon. The miners have dug a deep hole into the bedrock to get it out. But... there's always technical problems. So... I suggest that you would now quit your cylinder-building for a while and take a little trip to Deneveria."

"Me...? But I thought that..." Zarah raised her eyebrows with amazement.

"You. Yes. Craters, you're the best one to take the hegemony over there, now. You can put those workers in line and solve the so-called technical problems. I'm sure you can do that!" the Commander was at this instant very determined and would not let Zarah away from his office until she would agree to go.

"I guess I have no choice, then. But this is an enormous responsibility to a young engineer like me!" she shrugged.

"You can do it. Here's your visa and passport for the customs of Rigel System. A ship waits for you on dock fourteen." Commander offered her a plastic card a picture on it.

"You mean that I have to leave _now_? But... I got almost nothing with me... not even a toothbrush!" she gaped at him her eyes wide open.

"Don't worry about the sanity side, the ship is well-equipped. And I know that you have an enormous wardrobe in your little basement office, so there should be no hinder to leave immediately. You just go to pack your stuff." Nebula laughed, escorting her to the door.

"Yes, Sir." she sighed and left the office chapfallen. She apparently had to share the destiny of XR. No holiday ahead.

----------------

"Muhahahhahhaa!"

"Hee, hee..."

Two deep and harsh laughs echoed in the air. A lonely grub in a murky hall got his feet fast of fear.

"Oh, the pathetic loons of Star Command... think that we know nothing..."

"Sure we do... a good thing to have infiltrators..."

Zurg and Warp Darkmatter were standing in front of a large screen that monitored Commander Nebula's office. The old man was at the moment walking nervously a circle.

"He senses that he's not alone", Warp commented.

"Maybe he senses it, but hardly shall find the hidden spyware. Oh, I am such a bad boy!" Zurg rubbed his claws confident together, making metal creaks.

Warp tuned his biotic hand with evil satisfaction.

"Might this work even better with a tiny landanah supply..."

"Sure, my loyal apprentice! With that kind of magnificent new invention, I can rule it all! It is just a little dream, but I shall carry it out sooner or later!" Zurg chanted. "And now it is going to be sooner!"

"Sure, boss. The only thing we need is a bit coal to the furnace... and the instructions how to build it..." Warp clanged at the other villain.

"And... that is why I am sending you in. I know that you cannot fail this mission, it is all too easy!" Zurg sprawled, in the middle of his usual gloating ceremony.

"So, gotta do the basic go-and-get-it, nothing more?" Warp astonished. "Aren't you underestimating me a little? Wouldn't it be easier just to put a couple of those metal junks on job and bring us the tootsie?" Darkmatter crossed his arms over his chest and was discontented, taking a side look through the window at the hyper-hornets that were flying outside.

 Zurg took a short float across the dark throne room and landed beside the indifferent-looking alien.

"No, Darkmatter. This is maybe not as easy as it looks. Otherwise the Zurgean technology would have been enough. But, as you heard that poor Commander tell, it is the landanah. Remember that we need also it to build the magnificent dark future!"

"Oh, yeah, right..." Warp stroked his goatee. "Guess we gonna need to capture all the workers then, too?"

"Sure! I shall give you my best equipment with... and next stop: Deneveria. And what is your part, that is to get that woman, the know-it-all.  I shall let the robots do the dirty job."

"Heh, heh, she'll get a nice wet-and-cold chamber under the Zurg tower... until she reveals the technical structure of her wonder-widget." Warp slapped the back of his Master. Another cataclysm of malevolent cackles was streaming in the air after this.

------------ 

 XR was there to wave his arm for goodbye as Zarah embarked the private travelling ship. It was rather small, made for short flights between solar systems. Its hyperdrive was designed very efficient, for traveller's convenience.

"So, how long is your overwork?" XR asked before she shut the air lock.

"Two-three weeks... I think your crew'll be here before I get back." Zarah muttered.

"Too bad! I liked your processor work. More rapid than anyone has in my normal companion."

"Tired of hearing quotes from the space ranger manual, eh?" she chuckled uneasily. She too, liked the company of the little, wisecracking robot.

"It rusts me! And I want to hear no one ever say 'to infinity and beyond', again! Next time my short circuit current will burn my flip-flops, I swear!" the android mumbled and kicked a lonely nut on the floor.

"Try to keep your cables cool!" she winked and ultimately shut the ship door.

 Choi flopped down into the pilot chair and typed the coordinates of Xaneda with the keyboard into the autopilot software. This trip was something she had least expected. Although she had been eagerly building the cylinder component lately, she suddenly now felt herself very tired and disappointed. One thing was that she was now alone. Again alone. The hollow hum of the gravitation rotor and the silent space around her made her feel so abandoned.  And it was cold here, in the ship. She did not own a common space ranger uniform; one of those would have been warm and comfortable for warp travelling. Well, she was not a space ranger and wanted not to be; she was just a civilian help worker. Who would care about her ease?

 There was at least a little but rather hard a bed in the other part of the vessel. She wrapped herself into the thin blanket that lied on it and tried to get some sleep before landing. The next stop would be on a small customs planet situating in the Rigel Constellation. There she might take a snack and some coffee before getting on the road, again. Still the journey to her aim would take at least 24 hours.

 But the sleep never came. Her mind was empty and depressed. She rolled around on the bed, attempting to find some nice, relaxing position. But her sentiments let her not calm down. The shady and cold cabin, the pale twinkle of the distant suns through the window was only there to increase her emotion of sorrow. Well... could it have been any better at home? She had no relatives; no one was there to wait for her as she stepped over the threshold of her little apartment. Her parents had died a long time ago and a nanny cyborg had taken the care of her. Not even pets she had, one reason was her light allergy towards some species and the other that she was not the type that constantly would have remembered to feed a goldfish or sort.

 No, there was no one. Actually she had no female friends, either. She had ended up with these thoughts once again, lying on the uncomfortable bunk. Once she had known a girl that was like a sister to her, but this person had died young, some kind of tumour had destroying her brains. After her death, Zarah had thought of suicide, but had luckily not slashed her wrists open. 

 She sat up to huddle on the edge of the bed, bowing her head to the knees. A starting migraine beat her temples. She left the bunk and entered the cockpit, turned the intergalactic radio on and tried to dispossess the gloomy thoughts by listening to some fresh hits. 

-------------- 

 The next day Warp was having a lunch before he would take his speeder and head to Xaneda. He had an extravagant dwelling on one of the artificial moons of Planet Z.  He was quite triumphant, thinking already the reward his master would give him. With a short contemplation, he went through his ended career as space ranger.

"Those do-gooders of Star Command... most of them are so easy to deceive. And they so pitifully try to defend the 'good'... why they just cannot see how intriguing the dark side is? You'll get ev'rything easily: cash, cool ships, luxurious apartment... and all you gotta do is to catch a couple of cowards sometimes... Still wonder why the Izzard gave me this easy gig. Just some gal! Would have been brisker to take a nice deathmatch with that silly ex-partner of mine... Lightyear has at least some potential. But a gal... and even some nerd! Bah, quasars! Women have been my domain, but not some annoying nerds."

 With a swipe he flung the empty dishes to the floor from the table. The plates and cups cracked into hundreds of pieces.

"Hey, you brain-cart, I've finished my lunch! And I promise I'll finish you, too, if you don't clean this mess outta my floor!" he nastily shouted to a brain-pod that was already wiping the remains of his previous snack. He therefore placed his large boots on the table and opened a wine bottle, to take a snaps before getting into the heat of action.

"Ahh... this is life, if what..." The taste of the expensive drink was very enjoyable. "Oh, I have to go..." he took a leer at his wrist communicator timer. "The geek'll be moon-struck pretty soon, so gotta keep up my schedule. 'Cause Z seems to want her immediately here, gotta go."

The villain took a leap to the threshold of his dining room, pushing the cleaner out of his way. 

 In the launch bay Warp's new, shiny-black ship was waiting for him. A couple of grubs had designed for him this ultra-fast, streamlined fighter. He had taken a short test drive with it already, but this was the first time to try it in action.

"Oh, baby... with you I'm gonna be rapid!" he grinned self-satisfied and patted the lustrous metal surface of the vehicle. The hyper-hornets he was supposed to take with him stood in a line beside the ship. They had been last night programmed with the orders to capture every member of the small mining colony of Deneveria; transport the dugout landanah to Planet Z and basically do all the 'dirty work'.

"Okay, wrecks, put your motors rollin'!" Warp shouted to them and launched his ship.


	2. The Deneverian Mines

2. The Deneverian Mines

Zarah yawned and rubbed her sleepy eyes. She was lying in the bunk of the back room of the little civilian ship. Somewhat 48 hours had gone now and she still had not reached Xaneda. The customs of Rigel System had been full of queues, for there was a patrol of space rangers after some smugglers. Every ship was manually checked out and then marked ready to go. The traffic between the near solar systems had been standing for hours. So, there was no choice for Zarah but to wait, rent a cheap motel room in the customs town, and lull the night there. However, in the small hours of local time the gate was open again for traffic and she left, thinking that her job was urgent and did not allow any delay.

 Slowly Xaneda rose forth from the view of the cockpit window, as she trotted somewhat tiredly to check out the functions of the autopilot.  The planet was grey and bathed in sorrow. There was not much vegetation, nearly only solid rock and sand deserts. But the second moon of the particular planet, where she was heading her way, was rather lush and fresh. It had its own atmosphere that varied a lot from the main planet's one. Nonetheless, the first moon was just similar to its mother, dry, miserable and rough.

 Xaneda was not actually populated, but was merely in the use of some intergalactic scientists. It was not a well-known planet at all, besides who would have been interested in such a big hunch of bedrock? Until now there had been no occurrences of nature richness or relevant, so it had remained some kind of hinterland. Currently it was under the control of the Universe Protection Unit, which occasionally arranged some rehearsal or surviving courses for space rangers over there. At present, though, the once-existed communities of the main planet were closed, as all the residents working for Star Command had moved over to the moon. Xaneda had some kind of mystical reputation despite its seemingly soulless being. Stories told that there might be hiding former criminals and other fleeing creatures under the ground. The planet was never completely explored. There was unofficial information that there would be some kind of subterranean level structure, where might even be concealed entire cities.

  Deneveria was a crater valley of the moon where Zarah would be soon landing. It was the main mining area. The pit was dug right into the crater wall. The crater itself was not totally regular: the other side of its 'walls' had collapsed sometime thousands of years ago and made the valley resample crescent moon. Deep forests had then grown instead and covered the remains under them. But the other side of the crater was a steep granite wall, even the meteorite that had hit the ground ages ago had not been able to break down the solid rock, but only made it a bit scarper. Now the foreland worked as the site. Some forest had been logged in order to make space for the work and the compulsory dwellings.

 The landing engine began its normal buzz as the hovercraft system resisted the gravitational acceleration. Smoothly the ship glided onto a sand field beside a small, fast-put-together dwelling. There was no room in the normal worker residences for Zarah, so in a couple of hours a group of men had constructed this small wooden cabin. The climate of the moon was warm, so that there was no need for heating or relevant. And the water would easily come through a polymer pipe.

 Her night place was so on half a mile away from the main buildings. They were mainly temporal cabins, too, as the mining group had spent just only a couple of months in Deneveria. After Zarah had thrown her two little valises into her hut, she headed her steps towards the research centre that was a flat, one-stored, wide hall. The supervising engineer of the miners had been waiting for her at the sand square and now accompanied her to his office.

This tall man around his forties inspected her a bit suspiciously, as they walked along the unpaved sand road. The promenade went by the diggings and the assorted temporal abodes.

"So... you're Miss G'Deneb?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. Tyridie. You see that I was ordered here with a very short delay and..." she understood perfectly what the first image of her was: a young and naïve woman who claimed to be some skilled tech master.

"I only thought to meet a... um... someone a bit older", he answered biting his lip and watching the little female with a side-glance. Well, indeed, she was quite maidenlike. Many men had thought her to be still a teenager because having so childlike-face and short height.

"That can be so. But I'm now ordered here to take the lead until someone else is directed here under the authority of Star Command to take it instead. That's what Commander Nebula told and I believe that he means what he says." She took now a very official attitude, so that the state of affairs would become clear concerning her.

"Yes, Miss G'Deneb. I understand perfectly." Mr. Tyridie jerked a bit after hearing a speech so determined.

 On the way to the main building, she was introduced to some other engineers, workmen and rangers who swarmed outside. The lunch hour was just over and they gradually were preparing to toil again. She was regarded a bit oddly among the men; one reason was maybe that she was the only member of the opposite gender on that moon.

 The crew consisted of all kinds of highly educated aliens. Colourful people it was, indeed, as there were life forms from the furthest corners of the galaxy. If Zarah was stared at, so also she had the opportunity to gape with amazement as an amoeba-like jelly hunch with a yellow helmet glided by with his green friend that was like a walking eyeball. But the creatures were not so many; barely one hundred. Maybe there would be more of them in the future, but the current resources did not allow more workers. Food was in short supply and the equipment deliveries were seldom. Work and life were hard on this moon and some of the men were frustrated. That indicated to be one of the 'technical problems' Commander Nebula had narrated here to be.

 In Tyridie's office, Zarah was solicited to sit down. The attitude of the leading engineer had now changed a bit towards her, as she seemed to know her profession regardless her youth.

"So, Miss G'Deneb, you maybe understand that the main reason we asked you to come here, is that there has been some problems concerning the motivation to continue the landanah digging. It is somewhat hard to assure these men that their severe work is actually expedient and productive", Tyridie began a bit nervously, twisting his hands behind his desk.

Zarah sighed. "So it's the motivation, then. I see perfectly that the digging process isn't easy. I assume that you now use the new pressure drills that the LGM's sent you recently."

"We have now. But a couple of employees unfortunately erred to use the laser cutting machines that were against the regulations of this project..." he uneasily clarified.

"Oh, my... I hope that nothing serious happened? You must not use those, as the whole basis of producing the energy with landanah rests on the fact that the monochromatic light aimed at the crystal structure multiplies its energy! If you happen to cut the solid with laser, it could cause a huge explosion such as ancient nuclear weapons! The laser aiming may happen only in appropriate conditions, such as inside the cylinder that I'm currently designing in Star Command HQ!" she puffed.

"Well, that's what their mistake was about. It's quite hard and time-consuming to unearth landanah with those pressure drills. So, a couple of workers thought to make it easier with these laser cutters that are known to be efficient. Well... _the_ workers were after that transported to Lando System to get hospital treatment."

She wiped her forehead and sat quiet for a while after hearing this. "Why does not the information go ahead? It should have been clear for everybody that NO laser can be used in the primary process!" 

"Emh... In any case, that mistake is now corrected. The remains of the slip in the mining tunnel are cleared away and the work has gotten started again normally. We have only a fortnight delay. Still, several hundreds of kilos of the material have already been dug out."

"The tunnel collapsed? And when did you send the message of the 'huge' occurrence, you told there to be, to Star Command?" Zarah foamed. She was not to believe her ears how poorly the labour had gone forward.  
"Um... we did send it just a couple of days ago, because we weren't sure could we at all clean the rocks away from the tunnel. I have to confess that the tunnel collapsed just because landanah caused the explosion when being cut by laser.  So, the demolition took quite much time with those pressure tools. But I assure now that the work continues just as it was..." Tyridie nervously went on with his speech.

But she cut him short and wanted to see by herself the results and then scale the whole situation again. At first, though, G'Deneb wanted to eat something and change her dress to overalls and some kind of blousette, as the planet was hot and the exploring of the mining tunnel would be dirty job. 

---

"Roger Boss? The target has landed; we're ready in two hours." Warp's harsh voice was reaching from a loudspeaker in Zurg's monitoring table. The helmeted head of Darkmatter flickered in a holo-transmission he had sent from his ship.

"Jim-kraken-dandy, now just do your job and all will go smoothly", Zurg rejoiced and made an end to the conversation.

"No problemo, this is a piece of meteoroid!" was Warp's last comment.

 Darkmatter was floating in the ionosphere of Xaneda's second moon, with his ship and the hyper-hornets. No radar was able to spot his position, as the Zurgean technology went sometimes over the LGM's one. The new spacecrafts and hornets were equipped with an anti-radar energy shield that absorbed the frequencies the Star Command indicators were using and let them not echo back.

Now he monitored the Deneverian crater valley with his environment scanner. The mining centre was delineated clearly onto a screen that was in the control panel. A green light pulsed in the place of Zarah's ship.

"Good. The spies in Star Command did their job well. Would have been a bit uneasy to follow the nerd without good tracking devices. Gotta be a li'l hacker by myself, too!" he sniggered and prepared gradually to land. He gave some extra orders to the hornet army he had with him: all the buildings would be destroyed except three particular ones, one being the landanah storehouse and one the local power generator control building. The workers would be stunned with ion doses, and the ones that would try to flee, imprisoned immediately.  And -he was to take care of the main target: Choi Zarah G'Deneb. She was the most important link, knowing every little detail how to handle landanah and its usage.

 The blue alien still made clear to himself that he would recognise Zarah among the other workforce. He namely did not know that she was the only woman traipsing around. So, he ordered the ship computer to show a shot of the recorded transmission from Nebula's office. A blurry holo spread over the console.

"Okay... a couple of things stick out. She's got hair like Mira Nova and she seems to be quite irritating. A human... looks pretty thin and pale. Hmh... has Nebula hired a ghost? That thingy suffers from malnutrition if what. That's it, gotta put the freak movie away", he sneered and typed something on the keyboard. The scanned picture of Zarah was saved in the hornets' memory circuits. 

"Now I'm ready for the ambush. Right, hyper-hornets, go to have some hyper-fun..."

The dark army entered the atmosphere.

---------

 Zarah put a heavy shield helmet on and pulled a pair of work gloves into her hands.

"No more appropriate size? I could put three times my hand in these!" she pouted and tried to hinder the too-big accessories from slipping away.

"We... we are not prepared to such... eh... small sizes." Tyridie attempted to chuckle back.

She, Tyridie and two other technicians were about to enter the mining tunnel and put some shelter on in case of danger. The tunnel had been pierced right through the granite cliff wall, while it leaded deep inside the ground. The transport of the labour force, equipments and solid were done with magnetized rails. This was an ancient way, but very efficient and did not require much energy from the crystallic fusion. The vehicle where Zarah and her company sat down, resembled a small train. It was still fast and reliable way to get underneath the ground.

 Yet, after ten minutes of gliding down the rails, the vehicle suddenly stopped without any alarm.

"Now what did I touch?" the driver spread his hands and pushed many times the launching button. "Maybe this machine doesn't consider me as its friend."

"It's not your fault, there may be some minor problems with the remote control", the young man sitting beside him clarified.

Therefore, they sat there ten minutes more but nothing happened. The wagon assented not to move, neither forward nor back.

"This place needs now to be taken totally into reparation. Nothing seems to function; the digging process will not go forward if even the transport utensils are complete wrecks. I suggest we leave this horsey and walk back", Zarah snorted bothered and got off her seat. The others could do nothing but agree; it was way too long to walk down the stone corridor to the final aim.

But they did not know that the whole transport system had been shut down by a gloved hand.

 A distant roar echoed in the tunnel walls while Zarah and the others were climbing up the upward slope towards the main entrance.

"Are you guys doing more blasting in order to find other occurrences?" she asked Tyridie.

"No... I don't understand, where that sound could be coming..." the former supervising engineer rubbed his chin while holding the flashlight to see where they were going.

Some distrust suddenly crept into her mind. Was everything okay up there? It had seemed perfectly calm when they had left the site.

"I'm going straight away to the control centre to find out what's wrong with the transport remote. Would you come with me, Miss G'Deneb, it's not far away, it's the same building where the power generator is in", the man who had sat beside the driver asked her and smiled. Nodding she promised to come, but woke up to hear another series of strange bangs. Now the four pedestrians went grave and began to run upwards the tunnel.


	3. Warp, Warp, what's the matter with you

3. Warp, Warp, What Is the Matter with You...? 

 Zarah was just entering the sunlight after getting rid of the helmet and gloves, when one of the workers ran towards her and her company. His face distorted with fear, this overall-equipped alien panted in exhaustion,

"Alarm, e-everyone, we... we have been attacked!" he yelled. "Everybody to our ships, we have to try to flee! The protection shield has somehow failed... and everything has been blown to bits!"

Zarah's jaw hit the floor as her eyes fastened to the burning remains of the buildings behind the shouter. Chaos had suddenly struck the relevantly calm atmosphere. Nothing had been left from the dwellings of the workmen; all had been wiped away with a gust of wind. The individuals ran hectically along the ruined surroundings. And this all had happened so out of the blue, so unexpected.

"But, isn't there any protection from the space rangers? Can't we call for help?" she demanded and understood now being alone with the dust-faced alarmer. Her companion had vanished somewhere.

"There was the protection shield, but..." the man whined. Swiftly another explosion shook the ground and a heavy cloud of smoke rose up from the direction of the airfield. Men came running back, screeching and panicking their arms in the air. Zarah tried to leer around to make some sense into the event. Who would attack them? And now when she had just arrived? Was there possibly some connection between her presence and this manic tumult?

But, the aggressor was soon made clear as she heard heavy roar in the air and noticed two hyper-hornets landing among the frenzied run of the miners and other workers.

"Zurg...! Those are Zurg's robots!" she gasped. "What does _he_ want from here?"

 The evil-forced mechas began their programmed tasks and fired the men with stunning doses of plasma. Two other droids landed and started to carry the indolent into a line on the ground. Afterwards there would come a slavery ship from Planet Z to gather all the captured people and transport them into the dark destination.

 G'Deneb was now rather irresolute and lurking fear gradually made her heart stiff. Somehow she had by and by understood that she might be the main target of this planned attack, though none of the hornets had still noticed her, which was odd. The girl had hid herself behind some bushes that were situated right beside the tunnel hole. Lying low, the redhead ran along the narrow gap that was between the plants and the rock face, heading towards the smouldering back dwellings nearby the beginning forest. Her space ship had not been on the main aircraft area, but beside her own temporary flat. What if it was still there? What if the explosions had not destroyed it yet? She might still have the change to flee!

 Choi ran like a fool towards her last hope. She jumped over burning wrecks, fell a couple of times onto the ground, got her suit ripped to the sharp branches of the trees but finally succeeded to rush the half-mile marathon. What was there to wait for her? Her dwelling was intact and her ship _was_ there, in the most perfect condition it could be! She felt supreme delight in her heart as she thought herself to be saved now.

 Lurking a few seconds behind a gigantic rock, she assured that the course was clear. Strange, no one was there. The hornets had seemed to forgotten this place totally. Why was that so? She felt that there was something not right here now. But as Zarah was full of fear and eager trying this one possible change, she left her hideout and bolted towards her ship.

 But her dash was cut short. As she was going to enter the cockpit, Darkmatter stepped right in front of her from behind the spacecraft. The engineer stopped like in front of a wall, got her eyes wide of terror, and screamed shrill. She had never seen anything so frightening. The man she faced was huge, strong and sturdy, this fact being already one reason for fear. Zarah namely was so short that she barely reached his armpit in height. However, he had even his battle helmet on, his weapon arm aimed right towards her, so that the alien was looking even more menacing and extremely violent. Getting now in ultimate scare, Choi took a leap towards the woods and scooted again like a madman.

 Warp, on the other hand, was for a short moment a bit stunned when his eyes had met his target, for the very first time in open air. Was _that_ now... the one he was supposed to capture? The 'nerd' had been utterly different in the monitor picture he had carelessly clanged at, in his ship. Did she look like _that_ in reality? Warp had not had women surrounding him for a while. He had experienced a sort of boredom to the usual female company he had had so much, they all seemed to be just some feather brains whose mere interest was his handsome outer appearance. Well, he knew what kind of Mister Z Empire he was, but... everything gets dull if it is boosted too much. The time had flied enjoying the dark benefits and dogfights with Team Lightyear; it had somehow been more intriguing. Mira Nova was actually nearly the only woman he had seen closely lately, but she was with completely different physics, tall and able to ghost. In every case, the flickering monitor had shown Zarah quite differently. The impression of her being some famished was now washed away with the fact that this person was a literal shortie. But he wiped fast his side thoughts away, preparing to chase her.

 Zarah panted and sweat flooded along her forehead. Her feet ached, because she had fallen onto the ground so many times and got her knees sore. She was desperately looking for a possible hideout around her, but did not spot anything. There was a small square after the thin forewoods the girl was at this instant entering. In her panic she glanced over her shoulder to see, whether the nightmare-like enemy was still after her. Well, there he was, closer than she ever had thought. She squealed again in fright and unfortunately got her long ponytail stuck between a couple of tree branches. G'Deneb attempted manically to rip it off with her both hands, finally succeeding. However, this means opened up her coiffure, letting the thick hair smash right in front of her eyes. She rushed forth, at the same time that she groped her hair away from the view -and could not avoid stumbling. The result was that the female fell full length onto the muddy sand. Scrambling up was too late. Darkmatter stood now right in front of the squatting human. Agent Z had reached her easily with a short run. 

Knelt onto the dust, Zarah noticed that everything was futile. She slumped down and cried out in despondency. There was no strength left in her to resist. She thought that this man wanted to kill her, so with these thoughts her powers vanished in the air. She only stared at him with her full regard. He was just something incredibly frightening, even more as she could not see his face behind that mask. Well... Choi could not actually determine was that chaser a man or a machine. 

  Warp had gone silent too in front of her and stared at her just like she did at him. So, _this_ was the one that Zurg wanted. But... she looked more like a child than an adult woman. Quasars, she was so _small_ and _fragile_! Should he now shoot _that_ with the usual ion dose? But so Zurg had ordered and he would not be without operating. However, he still went on hesitating. "Now, Warp, do your job and then get the usual price. This was supposed to be an easy gig!" he muttered to himself and raised his mechanical arm.

 Again the courage of blasting the dose disappeared, as he saw the desperate fear reflecting from her deep, green eyes. Those eyes had now somehow hypnotised him, not allowing him the change to turn his regard away from them. She laid on the soil her suit torn, her coiffure open, her face distorted into a fearful grin. Sensing some odd gush in his heart, Warp once more heaved up his cyberbiotic arm, and slowly pulling it down with mixed feelings. The more he observed those eyes, the heavier his soul was. He somehow could not stand the gawp of hers.

 Zarah breathed rapidly and was stiff of fear. She dared not to move, only gazed at the weapon of Warp. A lonely teardrop trickled along her cheek as she prepared to die. She had not been long in this world, but maybe this was the best in the middle of all the suffering, she thought. Hence, she closed her eyes and let a hollow whirr conquer her head, while endeavouring to dispossess all the thoughts she ever had had. She stayed in her position, sitting on the mud hole, only bowing her head down. Her thick, red lockings fell on her pale shoulders like an afterglow.

 The seconds went forward and the sense of time and place was lost. She did not remember any more where she was, as she capitulated herself for meditation and the black dreams about crossing the last border. Then something happened, but she had hardly expected this.

"Get up! _Go_!" she heard a metal-sounding voice in front of her.

Zarah raised her regard with timid wonder in it. The rival she had thought to kill her, had suddenly put his weapon down and stood erect, letting only his sturdy figure look frantic. Feeling her palate dry like a bucket of gravel, there came no utter out of her mouth.

"Didn't ya hear what I said? Go!" Warp puffed bothersome and pointed at the forest with his finger.

Unhurried she scrambled up, keeping her stare all the time aimed at him. Warp sensed that the trepidation was still overwhelming the young woman.

"Do... do you mean that..." Zarah threw in, her voice shaking.

"Go now! Before it's too late!" A shout came from the front of her, boosted with a fist-shake.

Choi gave a glance at him from his toes to the end of his helmet, collected the remains of her suit and ran into the woods.

 As she had vanished behind the undergrowth, Warp took his mask away. His thick fingers were so slack that the helmet was dropped straight to the sand. The enemy alien just stood there, silent, like all his energy had suddenly been sucked away. What was it with him? Next, wiping cold sweat away from his forehead, he sighed long and deep.

"Now what... What is happening to me...?" he inquired himself. He had just let go the captive that he was supposed to bring to his Master.

Abruptly she was there again, in front of him, in an illusion. Those eyes... the fear. The _pitiful_ fear. No, he was not a pitiful person, had never felt any compassion. He had joined the forces of evil because it was the thing that had always intrigued him. Thus, what was it now wrong with him? He had never disobeyed the commands of Zurg, neither freed any captives.

"She had green eyes..." he stroked his goatee while examining the little footprints Zarah had left on the mud. "So full of fear... I just couldn't touch her..."

Out of the blue hot blood rose up into his heart as he sensed he wanted to see her again. But it was impossible, now. He took a couple of steps towards the bushes, but comprehended it being very much futile. 

Then the reality struck him again. "What am I going to say Zurg? I failed the mission!" he swore to himself and still for a short moment pondered of going after his former booty. But the hallucination of her regard appeared again in a lightning in front of him and made him startle. "I can't touch her, I just can't! What the dratted supernova is it with me, but I can't touch something so frail!"

"But how am I going to report this to Zurg? I have never let him down! If I just... say that I couldn't find her at all. That's a good one. I did not find her. I searched for her but was just not able to spot her. I even found her ship, but she wasn't there. That's it. That's what I'm going to say to him." he deliberated creaking his teeth. "Okay... maybe I'll go to check out her hut in case she has left there some information disks or relevant... and take them to Zurg. I just gotta put up some good fake story... quasars, what is it with me? If Zurg finds out the reality, it can be a funeral time for me!" he sighed in order to understand. But the behaviour comprehension never came. So he turned about and left the sand square.

 Zarah ran, ran, ran... she felt moving like in a slow-motion film. And suddenly all was black, the landscape twisted upside down and turned into sackcloth...

 A lonely hyper-hornet stood in the middle of the grass and roots, its arm weapon smouldering. "Work is done, code 666.666" its processor buzzed. It picked up the indolent woman and took a short flight to the main area. Well, Warp _had_ programmed the robots not to touch Zarah, but this one could not recognise her from the scan in its memory, her appearance was much something else now.


	4. Back to Planet Z

4. Back to Planet Z

-Planet Z, the next day-

Warp was slurping his cognac coffee in his dining room. A couple of hours earlier he had returned from Deneveria, without Zarah. He was now under constant tension, as his Master might any moment call him for allocution. Yet there had been no sign of Zurg; a servant grub had told a bit earlier that the Emperor was testing some new inventions in the blacksmith's shop, in the cellar levels of Zurg Tower.

 Warp lifted again his feet on the table as he sipped the hot drink, trying to relax. He felt very weird. What would he now say as he had not brought the engineer along? There had only come a pile of other workers as a slavery transport, but obviously none of them knew the landanah reactor construction that well, so that Zurg would build something based on their knowledge. And now... the easy mission had got a very odd turning point. 

"Oh, blasting quarks! My head... like I would had used my fancy arm blaster to my own brains..." he groaned and wiped his hairline. He was for the same time disappointed and angry at himself.

"Why didn't I just shoot the stunning stuff when she was running? Why didn't I have the courage to do that? Am I starting to chicken out, brave Mr. Darkmatter playing a turkey in fronta Zurg?"

He was somewhat facing a big problem: in Zarah's cottage, he had gone through the entire luggage but found nothing. All he could present was his empty palms, or one empty palm strictly saying.

"Darn, darn me... guess the gal is running somewhere in the forest and then makes a drill to Star Command..." he banged the empty cup against the table and stood up, starting to walk nervously a circle.

"Zurg won't accept this. And the worst, I won't get paid. Well, maybe a bit hot bucks for my sore eyes, but all there has come now is a bunch of needless toilers and a heap of solid with no use. Shoul' I take a hike back to the moon and try to seek after the li'l tech geek with my infrared widgets... then bring her to Z...?" he went on thinking but suddenly stopped as if he had hit his nose against a brick. The hallucinations in his head had begun again. He saw _her_ there kneeled on the sand and watching him with _the regard_. The regard. That was too much for him, even seen now as an illusion. It had stuck in his head like an indelible dreadful sight. As a ghost, she was there again, praying with her eyes to save her petty flame of life.

Cold sweat trickled along Warp's neck and he felt his knees weak.

"What is it with me? Am I sick?" he asked himself and inadvertetly sighed for relief that he had let her go. Although... he did not know the truth, yet.

 During his twittery rush from a corner to another came a fearful brain-pod to interrupt him.

"Eh... Master wants to meet you, your darkness and evilness!"

Warp jerked and gathered his thoughts. Now he would have to present the fake story as well he was ever able to. He took a stiffener before leaving his villa.

 Zurg was to receive Darkmatter in his throne room. But the acceptance was everything else Warp had expected. Zurg was on a very delightful mood, flying around the chamber with his jet boots, chortling nastily. As Warp stopped in front of him, he began his flooding speech.

"Darkmatter, Darkmatter, we have succeeded! This is a little step for Planet Z, but a big leap for the mighty Evil Emperor Zurg! The future is now in our hands, as we shall be capable soon to produce unmeasured amounts of energy for our appropriate purposes...!"

Warp was silent. What was this? A play? Or did he see hallucinations again? How could Zurg build anything if he did not have Zarah?

"You have perfectly completed your mission and shall gain the price I promised. Emperor Zurg will never break his promise concerning the loyal henchmen of the dark side."

"Um... I have?" Warp tried to look indifferent and leer at the ceiling. He had no idea what his boss was talking about, but decided to play along, winning thus some time.

"Indeed. Still there is one thing to wonder..." Zurg fingered his loudspeaker.

Now there it was. Warp prepared to give the white lies. "And that is..." he began, biting his lips.

"I thought you would bring the main target by yourself and not to give the job to your useful assistants." 

"Um... she was...eh..." Warp nervously started but was cut short.

"The main thing is that she is here now. We might go to see, whether she has awakened from the insensibility." Zurg waved his hand and gave a holo-transmission to a couple of grubs who would guide the men to their aim.

 Warp lumbered silently behind Zurg's cloak with a nerved expression. "Am I hearing mirages... eh... senseless noises? How can Z claim that she's here if I let her go? Or is this a trap to get me to confess what I've done?" he deliberated. It was easy to see, that Darkmatter did not trust his master worth of a uni-dime. Nevertheless, this was no ambush. Zarah had been captured and transported to Planet Z with the other workers. Maybe it was not meant to happen like that, but Zurg had got his booty after all, was the means whatever. The Dark Lord himself had been monitoring the slavery ships and stopped a hyper-hornet that was carrying the particular woman. Although the robot was stupid, it did not mean that Zurg would have had the same defect in his brains. Hence, he had ordered the droid to bring G'Deneb into the reserved cell, to wait for the waking up and then -if she was stubborn a girl- torture.

 The men descended several floors down, to the cellar levels. The grub leaded them at a small and dark chamber. Luckily Warp was walking behind Zurg, so the master did not see the affect of his apprentice. Namely, Warp's heart was to stop when he saw the cell and its lodger. The room was murky and wet; a hard mattress had been unrolled onto the floor beside a lightly leaking pipe. A weak light crystal brought some life to the cold stone walls. On the mattress, the woman sat hugging her knees and shivering with cold. There was not much help of her outfit here; the torn overalls and her blousette did not fit in the climate of Planet Z. She had come conscious for a short while ago, understanding perfectly where she was.

 "Wonder why they didn't kill me", she sneered at herself, when being aware of Zurg and Warp's presence outside the cell bars. She did not see properly the villains, but gave a glance towards them, a regard that was full of detestation. Instead Warp, whose vision was very good in the dark, got his eyes immediately attached to this glower. Although Zarah did not know, it was aimed straight towards him, straight to face his racking mind. There they were again, those piercing, green eyes that went through every internal organ and reflection of Warp. When he met them, he tapped a rave step backwards so that he nearly stumbled. There was something overwhelming in the atmosphere. He felt something strangling his throat, as if an invisible hand had suddenly collared him. For the first time in his life he was _afraid_.

"Darkmatter?" Zurg turned about when he heard Warp messing up with his strides.

"Ah... I guess I stepped on something sharp... maybe there's a piece of stone in my boot..." he hastily made up something. 

"I think your regular outfit was designed so intact that getting rocks in your boots should not be possible. If there is a hole, you should get it repaired immediately", the Emperor retorted.

"Quasars... right..." Warp sighed.

"But, now the main target, the beginning of the new era where man and machine are united with the new power... Muhahahaaa! Rhaarh!" Zurg sprawled and opened the bar door.

Turning her head away, Zarah pouted to the nemesis.

"Well there, little lady, I am offering you the change of your life! Join me and we shall together build the darkest and most powerful empire ever, with your new invention!" Zurg bowed to her side, beginning with his usual strategy to get more forces to the dark side. How many times he had been able to turn the thoughts of aliens towards him by offering them glory. Alike in Warp's case.

But Zarah was not a piece of cake. There was no answer from her side; only she stared at the shadows. 

"Well...? Are we making progress...?" Zurg became impatient after many silent minutes.

Now she got her mouth open and with her deep voice declared straight her opinion: "You can go to the lowest infernos with your honour and temptations you offer me. If you want to kill me, then fine. It's just the same for me, now. But supporting your tyranny won't succeed", flaming she concluded her opinion and spat on the helmet of Zurg.

The following outburst of anger of the Emperor was outrageous. He shrieked around and with his laser regard made the furthest wall of the cell charred. "You disagree with me? Like that? Oh, you are worse than Lightyear, the idiot that will not join me! You shall pay for your spitting, I shall get every little piece of information out of you with my methods. And I swear I shall get your stubborn mind open!"

Warp knocked his shoulder carefully. "Em, boss? What if you'll give her some time to think at first...?"  He had got through a bit of his emotional shock, considering now more rationally. He knew exactly what were '_the methods_' Zurg was going to use. And... he could possibly not think of seeing this little creature with that harrowing regard going trough one of those. Maybe... she would agree with time and be saved from the disgusting consequences.

Zurg panted in his wrath but agreed malcontent. "You, jackal of Star Command, you shall get 24 hours time to decide. But if you happen to be as much in wilfulness then, too..." he shook his metal finger in front of Zarah's nose. 

  "Worse than Lightyear! Worse than Lightyear! And that minx looked so easy to prevail upon!" Zurg growled and rushed around his throne.

"What about the other workers? Couldn't we possible get some information out of them...?" Warp asked, biting an energy protein bar.

"Exploding uranium, they are worthless! Pathetic clerks that only dig! Hey-hoo, hey-hoo, it is the Miss Snow White who is the most important part! Cannot you understand that, Darkmatter? Did not you listen to the conversation she went through with that silly Nebula? She was the one that was asked to lead the enterprise because the workers were so ignorant! The workmen are then useful when she is leading them, by izzards and zetas!"

 Warp left the main hall silently. So... everything depended now on the woman. What was her name... Choi? He rooted his pocket awhile and took a flat plastic case forth. This item was rapidly taken out of Zarah's luggage as he had thought it to contain possible information disks or relevant digital information. But it was filled with something else, something that still made him grap it along.

 It was a little personal, electronic palm book of hers, something that did not contain her work-life matters at all. It was all about herself, actually a kind of a diary. Warp had been reading it for a while today and nearly shocked to see the tragic and murky thoughts that had been written into it. Poems and scribbles that handled death and suffering, scanned charcoal drawings along with a couple of holo-pictures of its owner and her some occasional acquaintances were the embodies.

 He creaked open the door of Zurg's 'living room', where he sometimes used to spend his pauses. He did not feel it now necessary to get into his own apartment, as after a couple of hours he would take some mission flight again to a nearby planet. However now he decided to relax this way.

 He flopped down into an armchair and typed the opening codes of the palm book. The alien went a couple of subdirectories through with the program manager and opened a 3D-image of the girl. It had been taken only a couple of weeks ago in some warm place, in the summertime. Possibly this was picturing some park on Capital Planet. Zarah was sitting on a riverbank, her city speeder parked beside. She had a nice, dark-denim dress on; she seemed to laugh at something. So... she looked like this when she was in high spirits.  He had only seen the fear and the odium, but the emotions of this image were even more powerful than those. It actually made him smirk and a warm waft filled his heart. But it turned to a touch of a cold finger, as he in a flash recalled what was her state now and what would succeed if she would not obey Zurg.

"I hope she's witty enough to switch the side..." he thought it over and admitted that it would be quite nice to consider her as his new partner. "She's a babe, would be rippin' to have some female company here..." he cheered at himself, leaning his back against the soft backrest.

But then the veracity was there again, bitter and crude. She was such a personality that possibly would not be turned to the dark side. Moreover the consequences of the refusal... Suddenly Warp felt sick in his stomach. He pushed away the snack plate he had had in front of him, gulping the nauseous-tasting liquids that were tumulting up from his inners. 


	5. The torture

5. The Torture

 Zarah gnawed greedily the small food portion that was left her by a grub. It was the only joy in this hellish chamber, among the chilliness, the lurking shadows and the nightmare-like planet. There was no way to escape; she had understood that from the first hour on. And where could she go? She apparently would be caught in the very first corner -and shot again with that penetrating and painful ion dose. Her head still whirred after the last shot, her body parts feeling feeble and numb. Anyways, surviving from such a dose would take several days before the blood circulation would normalise.

 Now... she did not wonder anymore why the Emperor had not made matches out of her. No, she would be turned to a servant of Zurg with any possible means. But the mind was stubborn; she could not even imagine giving her support to the possessed Dark Lord. The only way was to keep tuff, steel the heart and be as cool as fluid nitrogen. She knew that it would mean her death, but so what? According to her, it was better to die knowing that one had died for good... instead of surrending to one's fears and lick the dust in front of an evil spirit. 

 She came to remember the man who had stood behind Zurg when the foe had come to offer her his slick contracts. It had to be the same one who had led her to the forest, straight to the ambush. Conversely, it had been murky and she had not distinguished him properly. But there was something weird about this one, was he then a cyborg or a man... he had avoided all the time getting into the light, not even stepped into the cell.

"Why am I thinking of that android? Maybe it is just because I've never seen anything so scary in my whole life..." she shook her head and blew into her palms to get the circulation livelier, in the abominable chamber. The food had not been much, the drink being even more less. "So, they have decided to starve me! Good!"

  After some hours Zurg came back to enquire whether her mind had softened. Warp had now been sent to buy some raw material to a nearby scum planet. Most of the solar systems of the Zeta Quadrant were under Zurg's reign.

 As the short discussion about landanah was over, Zurg came roaring back from the cell his helmet wet with tacky spit. It had been near that Zarah was not shot with laser; she had been so nauseous and unadjusting. He went on in his throne room to think how that little stupid obstinacy could be tortured the most disgusting and detestable way. She would pay every snot back if she did not resign herself.

  The hours crawled like snails. Minutes were hours for all the counterparts; the others hoping for cooperation and the others just waiting calmly for the cold hands of the grim reaper. Before the 24 hours were full, Warp came from his journey, only to run across the cruel fact that his current little fear was to come true. Zarah was not going to be his new partner. He discussed shortly with his Master about the situation. The other captured workers had been interrogated too. Most of them had been subjected, though only to whine about their ignorance concerning the whole landanah project. Zurg had been right; they were only assistants. 

"If she shall not collaborate in two hours, she shall get a nice fry!" the violet foe exclaimed.

Warp would have wanted to leave the whole topic aside, but was drawn back to the unpleasant conversation.

"Um... _fried_?" he asked nervously.

"I have just the perfect way to get her nosey nature turned... I remembered with my supreme intelligence that I have an old electric chair in the storage... I ordered a couple of grubs to put it in shape, just for her!"

Luckily Zurg had turned his back on Warp, namely the expression of the blue alien was that horrified with his raised hackles that it would have got Zurg to suspect him a lot.

"He cannot do that, not to _her_!" he swore in his mind, willing to take a hike.

"...and, Darkmatter, I have a special, neat surprise for you! You can be present all the time and help me! I count on you that you can get some information out of her, too!" Zurg said playfully.

Disgusting taste filled Warp's mouth. _He_ would be present? Participating the torture? He had been so many times taking part in those cruel sessions, but now... it all of a sudden felt so sordid, so inhuman... would he be watching that the cute creature he had admired, now be struck with high voltage and slowly sent to death? 

"Leaving already, Darkmatter? Remember, at two hours in chamber Z-3PO", the Emperor cackled as he saw Warp slowly traipsing towards the door.

 The temple vessels of Warp beat, an iron band squeezing his brains. He had never felt an emotion so torturing, so grating about anybody.

"You're his best man, his right hand, you do what is ordered!" a cruel voice in him tried to bang the propaganda of the dark side into his neurons. But there was another voice a million times more powerful, the voice of a before-non-existent conscience. He did not even know he possessed such a thing, but there it was, yelling at him maliciously. He traipsed along the corridor and took a lift to the level where Zarah was. He had to attempt to divert her, at least try it. What if he would succeed? She would be saved!

 Zarah was half-asleep on her mattress as he peeked in between the bars.

"I came to warn you! It's the last minute to agree with Zurg!" he tried to sound like a tough guy.

Zarah lazily turned her regard to face him. "So... now you come to tell me that, too? At least I solved the riddle now; you're not a robot as I thought. Well, good night!" Closing her eyes, she curled up in the shelter of her tiny being.

Warp did not stand any more, but the tone cracked severely. Making sure that there was one in the empty corridor, he whispered hastily, "Can't you understand, silly girl? You're going to be tortured! I can't stop that! The only way to get you out in shape is to obey Zurg!"

 But she did not mediate to answer; only lied there with closed eyes. Warp attempted to throw in something a couple of times more, but had to leave the cell without any reply. So... he took the lift to one lower floor. This level was usually solitude, a sort of a forgotten place of the Zurg Tower. In the bathroom, he gave a cold splash of water to his face, taking an amount of painkillers, to get the horrible kettledrum sound away from his head. There was now something wrong even with his heart, an unexpected extrasystolis reaction made it bounce like a wreck pump. He collapsed to one dim corner of the main corridor and ripped the lid of Zarah's palm book open.

"There she is... with the smile..." he stared at the holograph of the summer picture. "How could she be turned?" he meditated for the same time. His thoughts were extremely contradictory; on the other side the 'normal Warp', his normal evil self directed him to do what Zurg had commanded, on the other side the _new voice_ was howling to him, calling him with the worst possible names in the whole universe.

"What do you care about that chick, she's just a jackanapes of Star Command! You hate those folks, don't you? They're so pathetic, fighting for goooood and that sort of nonsense!" the first voice clucked.

"What are you? What are you to accept this thing? She's getting killed. Maybe not today, but at least sooner or later. Is that what you want? Seeing her turning to a bluish, stiff fright, her heart beats slowly changing to ventricular fibrillation... IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?" the second one shrieked. 

"Are you sick, man? You've laughed to the folks that scream in those torture devices! Isn't that fun? Fun to see how miserable they are? You're a strong man, Warp, you can enjoy with all of your heart seeing those pitiful jerks getting to taste the power of the dark side, heh, heh..." his own mind was again speaking.

"Why did you join him, Warp? You could have made a good career in Star Command. Now it's your time to decide. You're the pitiful and pathetic here, not the ones that defend their virtues. They deserve the best; you're the one here that should be sitting in that machine where _she_ is soon taken. You should have it instead, you know it very well..." the second one whipped him.

 In the middle of the mind-twister, Warp came to check out the digital timer of his wrist communicator. _Five minutes before Zurg would begin his commissions? _Had he been here that long whining to himself? Somehow the first voice in his head won now and let him pull himself together. "Quasars, I'll go and see, what boss is doing. It can't be that bad, can it? I've seen folks getting crippled in those fav widgets of Zurgie, what's so special in this case? Now you go!" he mooned it over and went to find the particular room.

 Zurg prepared to get the information out of his captive. A couple of grubs tuned the chair that was equipped with fetters, strange-looking needles and electric wires.

"Now we shall get all we need... muhahahaa! I believe the stubborn examinee is beaten after a couple of electric shocks!" the Dark Lord gloated satisfied.

Warp attempted to retain his normal mood, chuckling along, still somewhat nervously. Yet, when the gateway opened and a hyper-hornet stepped in with Zarah, he was a goner. The woman was very calm despite the following fate. Warp could not understand how she kept that coolness. And the worse, she leered again towards him with _the regard_. Those deep, piercing eyes that told him just what he was; a worthless piece of dust. Zurg was back against him, attaching Choi's wrists and ankles with the chains; so he did not see his paled expression of Darkmatter. Neither did Zarah. She had bowed her head and waited for the death to take her into its arms, once again.

"So... I tell you at first that you shall get along a lot easier if you now say _yes_ and join me", Zurg began his mantra.

She sat quiet in the massive torture chair. How tiny and sore she now looked as Warp peered at her cautiously behind Zurg's huge body.

After the long silence, the Emperor did the conclusion that she had not agreed to tell the landanah reactor secrets. Thus, he clicked a couple of buttons on the chair control panel and let the current in.

Zarah screamed shrill and loud, her face and mouth distorted as the electric shock spoiled her body. She was stiff as a trunk, but then collapsed powerlessly in her seat as the current expired.

"Well? How did that feel? Do you have now any second thoughts?" Zurg wondered, sticking his helmet face right in front of her.

She solely frowned at him, staying speechless.

"Hmh, if you like this, then..." Zurg snapped the buttons again, looking indifferent.

The current did what it had done half a minute ago, this time getting also her nose to bleed.

 Warp was in his corner, biting his lower lip so that it was nearly to split. Feeling a tumult in his stomach, he noticed that a portion of disgusting slime from his digestive system had found its way up into his mouth. He swallowed it with effort, but it came back in a bigger amount. Hackling a couple of times, Darkmatter stumbled towards the door.

 Zurg shifted his regard at him, snorting, "Toilet time, Darkmatter?"

Warp tried to nod and nearly fell into the corridor the door led. Rushing to the toilet room, he there let all the remains of his last dinner flood into the sewer. The puking was not to stop at all. Finally, he weakly got himself up from the floor and peeked at the mirror, washing next his chin clean.

The reflection of the mirror was pale and cold. Darkmatter's appearance was now as if he had been a week without sleep. Something squealed in his head; filling his whole awareness with that horrible howl. The temple vessels beat, like there had been a hundred hammers forging his head. He recognised very well the scream that echoed in his ears; it was Zarah's.

He gaped at his blue face from the image.

"So... this is what my Master teaches me to do..." he touched the surface of it, gulping, "...torture... torture women... torture _innocent_ people..."

He could not watch any more this loathsome face, but turned about and ripped his hair with his both hands. "I can't do this any more! I can't stand to see a thing like that any more in my life! Oh... what a piece of crap I am! Taught to kill and torment people!" 

Fifteen minutes went as he struggled with his conscience and rambling mind. Two bunches of blue-black hair had appeared in his hands. He threw them to the toilet and heavily tried to put himself together. "I just can't continue it this way anymore... but something needs to be figured out. The first thing to do is to get away from this place, far, far away..."

Peeping again at his reflection, Warp combed the messy coiffure into a bit a better condition. As he entered the corridor again, he almost collided with Zurg. The sturdy alien had not paid attention to the time and forgotten that the torture had kept on going.

"What took you so long? You missed all the fun!" the Emperor needled.

Warp did not respond a syllable. How could that jerk be such a sadist that he thought it was _fun_?

"Oh, well, she is yours, now. The grubs went to sleep. Try to get her back into her chamber. I think she passed out somewhere in the middle of the show, but there is still a heartbeat, I shall believe that... Too bad to tell, but I got no information out of her. We shall renew this tomorrow, as she wakes up. Jim-kraken-dandy!" After these words Zurg glided away.

 "Renew...?" Warp was not to trust his ears. He did not want to keep this as true. Oh, it had been so fun when he had joined Zurg, got nice rewards of stealing something... maybe putting some observation device around Star Command base... a couple of gunbattles with Lightyear... but this was way too much. Never had he expected to go through anything alike. Or to go through such emotions of shame and guilt. He was now really ashamed to confess that his name was Warp Darkmatter. The apprentice of that Hitler.

 Thus, slightly he opened the door of the torture room. He was to vomit again as he saw Zarah. The redhead lied on the chair like some dummy, blood flowing along the sides of her mouth, jaw open and she was totally unconscious. Warp squeezed his eyes close and let a cry out of his throat. No one was there to hear his despair, as this wing of Zurg tower was now very empty. Only the hollow corridors echoed something back.

 Swallowing the hydrogen chloride back to his stomach, he stepped to the woman. He noticed that there was still a petty flame of life in her, although she was in such a terrible condition. So he took some rag out of his pocket and carefully wiped the blood away from her face. The burst vessel in Choi's nose was to heal up, though. A deep sorrow inhale accompanied him, as he began to open the fetters. The iron had done its job, too. Her wrists were all raw and bruised. He took her wee, cold hand into his own and pressed it on his cheek, closing his eyelids and letting a couple of teardrops fall from the corner of his eye.

"How can he _do _things like this...? Never had I thought it to go... this far..." he muttered.

The ankle chains were the last ones to open, to get her detached from the chair.

"What am I supposed to do now with her? Take her back to the dungeons and let Zurg kill her? Never!" Warp wrinkled his forehead, severely deliberating what to do next. "Well, maybe I should get those wrists of her tended somehow..."

His armour was build so that it had all kinds of mechanic lockers in it. And for an emergency situation, under his wing-pack was a small first-aid-kit. Consequently, he took some bandaging materials and wrapped the clean gauze around her wrists. Then he carefully heaved her up from the chair and placed her on his shoulder, so that she would be easy to carry and comfortable for her, too.

"Craters... she's light like some atom particle..." he leered pitifully at her. "...I only hope that she would survive... if she doesn't, I can't stand to live with this kind of conscience, any more."

---------------

 "One possible thing to do. I get my butt outta here with her and never come back!" Warp swore in his mind as he took long steps towards the flight deck. Zarah was on his shoulder, wrapped into a blanket. It was now the deepest night, the halls of the Z Tower were mostly empty. He had done some minutes ago a break-in to the main control room, messed all the cables and sabotaged the whole security system. The surveillance cameras were all black; the energy shields were all gone. No one could make a drill; he knew that repairing this mess would take several days. Maybe he could now escape, leave this inferno for good.

 His newest ship waited for him silently on the deck. He had equipped it with some food supplies, water and some other modest gear. With determination he sat in the cockpit of his spacecraft, put the indolent woman carefully to sit in the co-pilot chair, attaching her properly with seatbelts. Then he just let it all vanish behind him, his luxurious property, his life and his dreams, as he allowed the ship to glide towards the deep space. No hyper-hornet was there to prevent him, thanks to his sabotage and the Zurgean technology of his speeder; it namely was not recognised in any radar. Soon Planet Z was only a shadow behind him as he let the warp take him to hyperspace. He did not know where he would go, where he would end; he would fly as long as his ship would have crystal power.

"Bye bye, Zurgie, farewell to you and your lowliness!" Darkmatter grimaced. 


	6. Zurg finds out the truth about Warp

6. Zurg Finds out the Truth about Warp

-Star Command HQ-

"The rave ion storm of Rigel System seems to affect every connection and data transfer!" Commander Nebula groaned as he traipsed around his office from the other wall to another.

"Hey, pa, relax, I'm sure the tech tootsie's all-right-o!" XR lounged lazily in Commander's chair and read some kind of an odd magazine.

"I am not your poppa and go away from my chair!" Nebula ordered the robot down.

"Hey, hey, mister President, don't start a show!"

"Nothing has been announced from Deneveria. Miss G'Deneb should be there already, commanding now the miners to make advance in the project!" the old man twisted his hands. "I told her to take an immediate contact transmission when she's in the target. Is it really only because of the ion storm, that she hasn't contacted me?"

"Suns are interesting guys... they huff and puff and next cause an ice age..." XR yawned and finally got down from the chair.

"At least I get you away from my office since your team comes back in two days."

"By diodes! I want the red-haired sweetie back, not those other dumbs! She was the first gal who was a bit of my size and, by triple diodes, she listened to me! Try to flirt to Mira Nova to the highnesses! Why is there such a lack of short women...? 157 centimetres of sheer beauty is rare!" the android moaned.

The Commander rolled his eyes and sighed. "You go now, I continue the failed exploratory contacts... let's just hope she's there and puts the men in order. I guess the transmissions work at least tomorrow."

---

"Go... you darned hyperdrive... don't start to play a cratery donkey now with me..."  Warp swore and banged the console of his ship. He and his unconscious companion had travelled in the hyperspace for a few hours now. Darkmatter had not had a specific destination, just headed away from the Zeta Quadrant. Anywhere else, anywhere else would be an Eden waiting for him, that was what he hoped...

 But now everything wasn't right. The indications on the holo-control seemed quite much too radical. At first, there was a strange defection, presumably an overheating of the hyperdrive, next the gravitation engine began to quarrel. The matrix flew in the holograph; green and cold numbers that told a nasty story. Then, blink! An indicator showed that one of the fuel crystals had shattered.

 Hot sweat trickled along Warp's thick neck as he groped for the controllers in order to shut down the hyperdrive. The engines whined irritatingly as the spacecraft dived from the fifth dimension to the normal Einsteinian space. He got the devices switched off and let the defective grimy ship glide forwards in the black velvet vacuum.

"Double quarks, at least the wreck stopped! Wouldn't have been nice to explode in the wrong dimensions..." he creaked his teeth and stared out through the windshield. The view was all misty and murky, only little meteoroids flew lightly beside the ship. However, behind that asteroid field was something... something that seemed like a solar system.

 Warp took a look at the woman, who was tied to the next chair. Though there was no sense in her, she breathed calmly and there was no perceptibly any bleeding. He ceased a short moment in the eternity of time just to observe her a little. There she lied, eyes closed... what would he do with her now? This tiny, sweet creature had tormented his inners to the last breaking point, so that he momentarily could not bear himself anymore. Because of her, he had now betrayed his Master just like he once betrayed Star Command. His past... it was there to haunt him. But he did not regret a bit when he thought that he had left the living hell called Planet Z. He unfastened his seatbelts and carefully stepped to her, bending forward to see her features better in the dim glow of the Milky Way. Was she real? Was she going to wake up sometime, or had the handling been that rough that she was judged to stay forever in the world of dreams? He touched her cheek with his fingertips and felt the softness of her youth. He risked himself to skim her lips with his ones, but soon turned his head aside and gritted his teeth in pain so that a couple of bits of dental enamel were crushed. There was still the smell of blood in her, remaining as a disturbing memory from the most horrible instant of his life. He wanted to get rid of that recall... the current flashing in bluish bolts in the air... the stink of the burning air molecules... the screams... the blood... the trombone in his brains... the taste of the vomit...

He screamed loud, his whole being distorted into the most twisted pose he could ever slither. With his only fist, he banged his chest and just kept asking: "_Why_? How could you do that? _How could you do that?_ You living Demon!"

 A light indicator on the control panel beeped solemnly. Warp had a couple of minutes ago slumped back into his chair and now just lied there, breathing deep and hard, eyes squeezed close. He heard the noise coming like from a hollow sewer. Fatigued he opened his eyelids and checked out the monitor. In the holograph was delineated a planet.

"What's this...?" his mind got sharper. "The solar system of Yrrz... the main planet Yrmh. Atmosphere... 78 per cent nitrogen, 21 oxygen, some carbon dioxide... is this true? Could I get my broken ship there with a hunch of luck?" his mind gradually delighted a bit.

"Give me more information", he ordered the ship computer.

The view was filled with other data. "Quasars, this planet _is_habited! That's where this big blue guy is headin'" he grinned to himself until he read the last line of the advice table.

"...Star Command sub-bureau in the capital...!" his thoughts went timid and murky. "Go there and get myself into another trap? Great! Get a life, man, that's no place you're landin'!" the old Warp in him spoke again.

 But next he leered at Zarah. "What am I going to do with her? Always they say, make a plan for difficult situations, but darn, what can you plan when soon an army of hyper-hornets and space rangers are chasing you? Think, Warp, think, think, think..." he slapped his forehead.  
"She needs to be taken into a safe place. And what about the other captives Zurg has still there in his dungeons? I care a rotten asteroid about them, but this is now _the thing_ between Zurg and me... You, Mr. Purple Bucket Head, are now challenged!"

"Okay, now... easy, big boy..." he pressed the engine starter device control and let the deceleration process begin. "Hmm... I dunno what's out there, but we'll give a try. The thing is that you get the sweetie chez those cheap rangers, how yucky it ever would sound like. And she won't be found with me, one way or another I get her awake, transport her to the capital and get her to contact her bosses. And I stay invisible. I won't lie the next eighty years on PC-7! She'll make an alert to her leaders and get the crew outta Planet Ugh! Zurgie can play then mouse and cat with Lightyear as much as he wants!"

 As the spacecraft plunged into the atmosphere, there indicated to be even more defections in it. One by one the controls began to paralyze. Warp cursed and bit his lip broken in order to keep the ship stabile in the forceful gravitation. With huge efforts, it finally stopped and landed on a square in the middle of a forest. It had been the only appropriate place to settle, through the windshield was not seen any others. The thick woods continued towards the eternity; it had been only a blow of extreme luck that this one place was there at hand. He would have flied to the suburbs of the capital, if possible, but the ship was apparently going to be a wreck before that.

"What is it with this; it worked like a dream when I was still with Zurg! Has he put some kind of deception adapters into these? Once you leave him and everything gets broken?"

 The misfortuned Titanic of space was now reeking on the grass plain. Warp loosened the belts of Zarah and carried her out. There were some rocks sitting on the ground across a little distance; he laid her behind them and took a couple of runs back and forth, to the ship and back to the rocks. As he had the items with him he wanted, he hid himself partly behind the large granites. With a determined expression, he rolled his right arm into an ion blaster and shot the once so fabulous vessel. It exploded into thousands of pieces, leaving only smouldering smithereens to decorate the plain.

"There... I'm deadly positive the ex-boss hides all kinds of spyware even into the stuff of his henchmen... Never be too blue-eyed concerning him. Once he gets the ruined control room in shape, he'll trace my every movement if I leave his gifts lounge around!" Next his eyes attached to the gauntlet of his left hand. "Burned quasars! My wrist communicator! This should have been the first one to destroy!" He took the glove away but came into second thoughts after a while. The communicator namely was not just for jabbering with Zurg, but also had a coordinate locator, timer, infrared devices and everything else the nanotechnology was able to provide. "It is a shame to put this to burn with the ship... could I just somehow block the radio frequencies...? I gotta locate our route, it's impossible without this gadget." However, he knew that it was extremely dangerous to carry that thing any longer.

 Worried he sat down into the shadow of the rocks. He tinkered with the communicator somewhat half an hour and then put the 'Swiss army knife', a pocket collection of tools for soldering, screwing, drilling, nailing, and cutting, away. "Phew... I truly hope the parts that would transmit something to Mister Sunny are now functionless. Now... let's see where are we actually regarding the capital? I have to get her there in a way or another."

 He had read from the information holograph a couple of useful facts. The planet was sparsely populated and there were only a couple of towns overall. Most of the surface was water and forests. Slowly his communicator calculated the distances and coordinates he had given. The green holo-compass was delineated in the air, being aimed to the north. The calculator announced that the capital Jabaduhudd was so on 100 kilometres forth.

"Jumping space dust! What a walk! And I should rush in ev'ry case!" he stared at the readings shocked. Then he went on to think about _her_. He had not paid attention to her at all. "She's gonna starve and wither if she won't understand to wake up!" he rubbed his chin and bent down to her to see what was her condition. "Let's see, she's been very long without fluid and nutrition. An' in that state, she won't survive long. Action, man... your wit is needed again..." he slammed his forehead, then remembering his carryings. Warp rummaged his large backpack for a while and pulled a portion of saline forth. He stuck a needle into Zarah's arm vessel and taped the plastic bag on her arm. "Fast food...!" he gave a little laugh and was in all his depression happy to be able to somehow advance her well-being.

 After a snack, Darkmatter took his backpack, put Zarah again on his shoulder and began the long and uneasy route towards the capital. Hours went by, the dry forest gradually turning to a swampier area and opposite.  Strange kinds of animals came to sniff the travellers while Warp took breaks. It was needed stamina when he wandered with his cargo. Though Zarah was only somewhat 50 kilos in weight, he had also his other stuff. Carrying over 70 kilos for hours was extremely burdening for even such a strong man as he was. Through the sweat drops that occasionally dimmed his vision, he hoped that she would wake up and be able to walk with her own legs.

 -Planet Z-

 A fear-struck grub rushed along a somber corridor. He panted, trying to fasten his dismal speed with his short legs. "He's not gonna like this... he's not gonna like this at all..." he writhed his hands, grimacing uneasily. A flock of awakened bugs was struck with a chaos after finding the sabotaged control room. Most of the hyper-hornets were functionless. The data transfer connections to the outside galaxy were all dead. For the while, a bunch of his fellows wailed the catastrophes. Warp had done fundamental job; after cutting the cord flexes, he had enjoyed blasting a bit the monitors and central processing units with his mechanical arm. It was as if a twister had been rumbling there.

 Without asking permission or knocking, the grub entered Zurg's private sector of the Tower. No one had ever had the courage to do this before, but at the present it was an apparent emergency. It was early morning now on Planet Z and Zurg was still in heavy sleep. The individual space of the Emperor got the lonely grub to gasp. He ran through a wide and high hall that reminded old Tellurian Gothic style in decoration. Massive, mostly violet tapestries covered the walls, making the rooms look even scarier and darker. Crystal lamps glowed dark-purple light in their holders. Gigantic 'Z'-letters decorated every chair, table and dish, not to mention the furnishing elements. There was most evidently seen the Emperor's obsession to the initial letter. 

 The lackey was in a lobby of some kind, on the other wall there were four doorways leading to unknown places. He chose one of them randomly and abruptly entered a clothes closet. Black cloaks, purple cloaks and a vast assortment of other garments hang here and there, bathing in the light of a flaring red crystal. "No. Another try!" he wiped his forehead and took the next door. "Bingo!" he cheered and crept in. There was nothing else in the room but a fourposter that took most of the space. Heavy, dark violet curtains were pulled over it to give the Emperor the privacy he needed. Nevertheless, now the in-come creature jerked. On a night table beside the bed lied a loose helmet, the one with silver horns, red eye sockets and the teeth-like loudspeaker. No one, fairly no one of the workers of Planet Z had ever seen their Master's real face. Most of Zurg's servants possibly thought the Dark Lord to be an android of some kind. However, this might be a question of death for the insect, but he had to tell his news.

 Joggling he opened slightly the curtain. In the blear light, he distinguished a man lying on his back under the black, silky bed sheets. Zurg seemed to be somewhat a 50-year-old, pale human man with black hair and black chin beard, without moustaches. There the normally so invincible-appearing Emperor snored like whoever normal mortal. Deep grooves framed his thick lips, and above his thick eyelashes were a pair of expressive black brows, making his aged features somehow even more charismatic. For his age, Zurg was a man extremely handsome. Those faces reminded the grub eternally about something, but he could not connect the association.  Now it was more important to reveal the urgencies. He hackled cautiously and that made Zurg express wake up.

 The Dark Lord could nothing but glare at the worker creature for a while, he was so shocked after the declarations. However, even worse it seemed to be that someone had seen his face. That had made him flabbergasted the most. Ultimately gathering himself, he hit the grub against the wall with one bunch. "WHAT? _WHAT_ has happened?" he bellowed fiercely, his dark-brown eyes flashing sparkles of evilness. His harsh and old, bass voice was quite much more powerful-sounding without his head shield. Before he could snap the unlucky grub to crush him in pieces, the creature was conscious enough to run fast away from the Emperor's rooms. He would keep his mouth shut eternally about the little rare thing he had seen.

 Soon the royal himself floated huffing and puffing into the control centre, this time with his full gear on. As he saw the remains, he erupted like a volcano and burned a couple of near grubs with his laser regard. "AAAAARGHHH! What is this? Where were the guards when this happened? WHO is responsible of this?" he blustered.

"Um... sir, there ain' no such things as guards on this planet, 'cause we're your guards..." a brain-pod clarified.

"WHO did this, I want to know now! Where is Darkmatter, bring him here now! He shall find it out if I cannot and torment on hot coals everyone that took part in this sabotage!" Zurg left the remains to the hands of the assistants and went to his throne room. "When I get my claws on the person that..." he swore and rushed around the gloomy hall. After one and half hours came a brain-pod to remark that Warp was found nowhere, neither in his mansion nor in Zurg Tower.

"Where is that man when he is needed?" Zurg roared and rushed into the 'living-room' he knew to be one of Warp's favourite places. There was no one, only the cold walls echoed his frustrated cursing back.

"No, where can he be, by starving craters!" Then his mind got attached to the engineer they had tortured yesterday.

"Well, now she is to reveal her darned secrets and help us to repair the controls!" he took a rapid action towards the dungeons. "I shall make her join me with a means or another, NOW!" he hissed as he stormed forward. However, there was a nasty surprise waiting for him: the cell was empty.

"...It c-cannot b-be..." he touched the bars and once again leered at the room without its tenant. "I-it is empty... how can this be..." A very unpleasant thought gradually skulked into his mind. "No, no, it cannot be, this cannot be connected to the absence of Darkmatter... maybe she was then left in the torture room..." Next, he flitted to the chamber Z-3PO. The electric chair was as blank as it had been in the recent years. Eyes wide open he gaped at the torture machine, the small blood beads on the handrails. Someone, someone had been here, opened the chains and taken the captive away. And... he had left the whole job to the hands of Warp Darkmatter.

"NO! NO! What have you done, Darkmatter? Have _you_ done this?" he asked himself many times. He could not accept this; it could not be true, anyhow! His most loyal henchman ever, would have betrayed _him_? The one he had trained so well with discipline and rigour? The one he had trusted almost the half of the duties of Planet Z? However, it all became evident as one of the searchers of the lost apprentice came to inform that one of the ships was missing. This lacking one was Warp's newest speeder.

"_Darkmatter?_ Darkmatter! _What have you done to me?_ How could you do this to me? Did not I give you all the glory and fortune you ever wanted? And now you have come to say me farewell, by deceiving _me_, _your__ Master_!" Zurg's eyes flashed as he raved like a mad lion. "You shall pay for this! You shall not ever see a living day after what you have done! The revenge of the dark side will be the most horrible, most..." his nerves started to get tired to the bigotry and his old heart beat in a wrong rhythm. He sat down onto the floor panting and let a couple of grubs measure his blood pressure. As he recovered from the attack, he gravely gave orders to start the repairs and put the functioning hyper-hornets in job. They would be sent to nearby planets to give a warrant of apprehension and find the traitor, if possible.


	7. Deep in the woods

7. Deep in the Woods

The sun gradually vanished behind the trees and soft shadows covered the ground. Warp was sitting back against a trunk of an ancient, mossy and gigantic tree. It grew at the bank of a little, crystallic river. He had reposed his aching muscles for a while and then tinkered with Zarah's palm book. Two hours had gone by as he had coded and programmed important information into it: the 3D floor plan of Zurg Tower, the security codes of every single energy shield he could possibly remember, the data about the amount of weapons and their locations and other acquirement of utmost necessity. He did not care a screw anymore about his Master; he was so full of hatred towards him that he was ready to deceive him fundamentally now. The last things he typed into the machine were the descriptions of the infiltrators of Star Command. They were so on ten, technically skilled young people who thought to find something better from the evil side, carefully chosen by Zurg. Nevertheless, Warp knew they were weak and mostly after a bit of inquiry would sing their stories.

 Warp's purpose with the palm book was that he would give it to Zarah when he had successfully got her in contact with Star Command, and assured that she would get home. With all the information, the space rangers would easily conquer Planet Z and free the remained arrested. He, though, would not be there, then. It would be only the job of Zarah to bring the knowledge in. He wanted no close dealings with Star Command or especially Team Lightyear. Warp would vanish under the ground as soon as everything was done. But... the future did not look that promising right now. He was in the middle of the wilderness, alone with an injured woman in coma. Besides, the temperature indications of his wrist communicator did not seem hopeful at all. As the sun went down, the misty coldness filled the forest. It would be only a few degrees over in the night. 

 Darkmatter had not paid attention to this fact as he had swiftly packed up the ship.  He had taken a blanket or two with, but they would not be enough. Well, _he_ would have no problems in his space suit. It was incredibly warm, designed to endure the low temperatures of vacuum. He had come to think of Zarah. She lied beside him on the grass, the coverlet wrapped around her. She had heavy army boots, but there ended up the proper parts of her outfit. With those torn overalls and that sleeveless shirt, she would freeze to dead if he could not find a way to keep her warm during the night.

 Therefore, he did a small fireplace on the ground. This was a totally new operation for him to do, usually if he had had to stay the night in open air, he had used small, compressed, so called heat cubes instead. Now they were in every case not at hand. Warp had not even thought about taking them with, he had relied on the piece of evidence that he would have had his ship with. The possible accommodations would have of course been arranged over there. 

 The fire was easy to do with his right arm flamethrower and some logs were a piece of cake to chop from the dry wood the forest provided beyond centuries. The lively and cosy fire did tender some heat but it would not completely keep Zarah warm.

 The sun had gone now entirely beyond the horizon and the shades were all sackcloth and tar. The flames of the fire twiddled bringing the only light to the roots of the colossal tree. Warp had finally made his decision concerning Zarah and taken her under his left arm, to keep her warm. There were not many other options left. His body heat would save her from being turned to an ice cube. His space suit was namely designed in an interesting way: it had a thin biotic middle layer that produced heat, using nano-sized amounts of the crystal fuel of his wing-pack as its energy. So it radiated the heat also outside, if wanted, and could be regulated through his wrist communicator. This was one reason more why he had not wanted to get rid of that thing. The particular detail of his suit was very handy and ideal now. On the other hand, he felt that it was very nice to hold Zarah against his chest... she sunk nearly invisible under his huge arm. So he fell asleep there sitting and leaning against the trunk, guarding and keeping alive the woman that would have now been treated less well in Zurg's electric chair, if he had never taken the initiative to flee...

 The morning opened hazy. Some animal voices were heard distantly as the movement slowly began behind the bushes after the night. The fire had lapsed hours ago. Warp blinked his sticky eyelids and smacked idly as he leered at the foggy river bench. The indications of his thermometer told that he could leave Zarah without external warmer and so he stood up, stretched and disappeared towards the edge of the water.

--------------

 Blackness. Death. No, no... it was not black, it was purple... no, black again... A frizzling noise... pain. _Pain._Poignant pain... like a million knives slashing at the same time... a smell of burn... violet... black... violet... black... pain... stuck somewhere, someone gashing with a billion blades again... now it was cloggy, a swamp that sunk gradually its offer into its eternal inners... a black swamp... turning to a whirlpool where sculls and loose bones twirled... black...

A distant light...a scent of fresh air... pain... Zarah's eyes were foggy after her long state of unconsciousness. She saw nightmares in front of her although she virtually had left the Styx and had entered this world. Catching the reality gradually she rose up to sit, supporting herself with her arms. Something strange... something inexplicable must have happened while she had been beyond the edge. She was not any more in the murky sell, but lied under a bush, on soft grass. A blanket was put over her. The approaching dawn still left the roots of the trees murky, but the sky was clear and bright upon them. Where was she? And why? Was this a mirage of her mind...?

 As she tried to move a bit more to see where on earth she was, she came across with her injured body and moaned in wrench. It was as if a dozen brands would have scorched her feet. She covered her eyes with her palms in order to prevent the tears and turned to lie on her stomach. But there was something else. Something warm touched her back very gently.

 Zarah turned her eyes over her shoulder in disbelief. Who could be upon her? Who had brought her here? She was to jump in the air for anxiety as she met Warp's face right over her. A cold fear filled her heart and she tried unsuccessfully to retreat, only causing her more pain. So the girl ended up two metres further, curled in suffering.

Warp therefore kneeled right in front of her and attempted to keep his voice silent and soft. Though, he deliberated long what to say and how.

"Don't be afraid", he finally got a sentence out of his mouth. He offered his hand to Zarah. "Let me help you."

She looked at his open palm and then his eyes. His regard was weird, somehow extinct but sparing. Very slowly, she extended her arm and put her small hand into his fist. His thick fingers closed themselves softly around her ones.

"Are you hurt?" he asked cautiously.

Zarah swallowed a couple of times in order to produce some reasonable words. "I... I can't stand up", she whispered.

"Is it your feet? Tell me."

She sighed and probed her ankles. Even the feeling about them made her mouth distorted.

Warp sat on the grass, took her other foot in his hands and unlaced the boot she had. She cried in anguish and even more, when he twisted unruly her ankle. And in a breeze he did the same for her other one. The ache had been so tearing that her eyes had gone black for a while.

"Now it should be betta... both your ankles were dislocated. Maybe it was then when you were... tortured. Maybe you writhed so much", he silently clarified and watched her lying outstretched.

 Zarah had problems not to lose her conscious again. Her eyes were blurred, but the rending wrench gradually settled down. She opened her eyelids as she felt a warm hand on her forehead, wiping away the cold sweat of her agony. The fingers played a bit with her lockings, gathering them away from over her eyes.

"The pain usually goes off as the joints are back in positions..." Warp ascertained melancholically. 

"Where... where am I...?" she asked weakly.

"I don't know, where we are... my blastin' ship got broken. This hinterland is some bleak planet in periphery", he sighed.

They both kept a mute moment. Only some distant bird sang a longing tweet.

Warp began again: "Should I help you sit up...? I think you might wonna eat som'thing..."

"Guess so..." she blinked her eyes, to get used to the light. She had not quite yet recognised the man who was with her, her visual field was still covered by a nebulous tegument.

 Warp helped her up to sit against the tree trunk and went to get his bag. As he came back with a portion of some snack, Zarah finally perceived, what had happened lately, who was the man she was with and in what state she actually was. Even, a faltering memory from beyond a couple of weeks rose up into her mind. She remembered that XR had told her about a henchman of Zurg who had a metal arm and blue skin. Her hackles got in the air, as she comprehended now being alone with Warp Darkmatter, the traitor of Star Command, a cynic, violent and destructive alien. That was the half-robot, who had chased her. _He_ had stuck his nose into her cell then, trying to bend her to join his Master. _He_ had been standing behind Zurg at the minute the current was liberated to gallop along her body.

 When Warp approached her, she retreated towards the trunk, crouched in the ground and shifted an anxious regard towards him.

"You... y-you're W-Warp D-d...Darkmatter, aren't you...?" she whispered with a shivering voice.

His shoulders flopped down and his expression turned very sad. "I wish you wouldn't be afraid of me. I'll never return to Zurg again, that bloody..."

Nevertheless, she did not believe a syllable. "Why did you bring me here?" she panted in terror.

He sat down grinding his teeth. "I fled Planet Z because I couldn't stand to do what I was ordered to do... to kill you slowly with that torturing." After this, he buried his face in his only palm and muttered something unclear. Next he turned back to Zarah and offered her the snack.

"How... how do I know that I can trust you?" she stared at him.

"You don't have to believe a word I say if you don't want to. I'm a liar, betrayer, that's what I've been all my life..." He stood up and walked to the bushes that were a couple of yards further.

 Zarah slowly ate her little breakfast. Warp had gone somewhere out of her sight and she had now the opportunity to glance a bit around. The first notice was still her state. She was put quite in a comfortable place. Her sore wrists had been bandaged, a water can stood beside her and the remains of a little camp fire were also on the ground. So, someone had kept her warm during the night and even given her drink...? This blackguard had done that...? Then the recollection from Deneveria came back to her mind. Warp... that was the masked pursuer for sure- had suddenly ordered her to run away. But that had leaded her straight to an ambush! Someone had shot her indolent. But... could he have meant something else? Could it have been that he actually wanted her to get escaped? He had been avouching that five minutes ago. 

 "Left Zurg...? Is he bad or what is this...? He seemed to be very sad. Is he really helping me or is this just cabal to get me into worse troubles...?" she scratched her hair. 

 When the mist of the morning had somewhat dispersed, Warp made the whole thing clear to Zarah. She listened to his story half in disbelief and half being afraid of his monstrous appearance. Then it was time to continue the day's march towards the hovering destination. He decided that she was still not capable to walk with her feet, though he knew they would heal up soon, as the joints were in positions. He had forced her to take some remedy; the last remains of the Zurgean medicament he had with him. This cure would heal her soon. She was quite in dismay again as Warp placed her to rest on his left shoulder and began the toil. But in a few minutes the scare was at least partly away.  A light conversation gradually stepped in between the counterparts as the metres went by.

--------

 "Aaaw, it's good to be back! Hey, XR, have you seen Buzz?" Booster stamped along a corridor of Star Command headquarters. The robot rolled frustrated beside him.

"Naah... pa said he comes after the midday... the Princess Bride was already in the cafeteria", XR answered.

In the corner, they bumped with Mira who dropped her cup of take-away coffee to the floor and got her uniform front wet.

"So this is how the first day after the holiday begins? Very promising, very promising..." she cursed and attempted to wipe away the mess.

"I'm sorry, Princess..." Booster whined and used XR as mop to clean the floor.

"M-I-R-A... finally after this time you should call me with that name. I'm not pleased to be drawn to comparison with some Cinderella!" she snorted and cleared her throat, to continue with a more urgent topic. "Look, I just met the Commander. He said we would take a mission as soon as Lightyear arrives. Something is wrong in a particular miner area Star Command has in its supervision."

XR got grave. "What? Don't tell me it's Deneveria? Oh, great superconductors! Is my damsel in distress?"

Mira sighed to the lovesick robot. "I don't know how you have heard about Deneveria, but there we're heading. And, please, don't tell me you will call the missing-suspected inventor-engineer Miss G'Deneb your chick or tootsie or sweetie..."

 Commander Nebula stood austere in front of Team Lightyear. "Now I'm afraid to inform you with very displeasing news as soon as you have returned from your nice holidays... We have a huge problem, and I wish nothing serious has happened. You know now the facts; Miss G'Deneb left Star Command HQ almost a week ago, without any further contact. Data transfer to Rigel and beyond should be now square. No answers from the mining moon of Xaneda, whatever means I have tried. You go now and check it out what's out there. We have a lot in this game; this mining colony plays an extremely important little part."

"You mean that Zurg would...?" Buzz raised his brows.

"He would, if he'd know. He'd pay his empire to get this new invention into his claws. And I just have this certain intuition that he knows about it." the Commander frowned at the floor.

"But, sir, Xaneda is very far away. It will take at least 48 hours to..." Mira began.

"I know it is far away! You put 42 in shape and go. I don't want to know half a picosecond that Miss G'Deneb is in danger! She is too important a person to be put in the same company with Emperor Zurg. Now, dismiss!"

 "Have you folks ever been to Xaneda?" Booster asked his team as they rushed to the launch deck.

"Nope. But I've heard that there are dragons and werewolves and vampires and alive mummies to wait for you...!" XR joked in cost of Booster's curiosity.

"Now, cut it out, XR. In my opinion, the Commander maybe takes this a bit too seriously", Mira commented.

"I wouldn't say so... my ranger intuition says something else. But, troops, we have to do our jobs", Buzz answered determined and attached his seatbelts. The whole gang was now in their ship.

"Now, hurry up, you sloths, my goldie is maybe thrown into some wet cell on Planet Zzz..." XR protested the tardiness.

"Yeah, right..." was Mira's last comment.

----

 Towards the afternoon Warp was so tired that barely had the strength to stir a finger. He had roamed 15 kilometres in almost impassable terrain with his load on back. He ate his stomach full and dipped in heavy sleep, letting Zarah finish alone her snack. She was of course quite animated; it did not take much force to travel on one's shoulder. She had now the time to think, to gather the incoherent thoughts that tumbled in her brains. She was still quite afraid of Warp, but somehow had turned a portion of her prejudge aside. He seemed to take good care of her and had the courage to sleep just like that in her presence. So, he trusted her but she did not quite trust him, yet.

 After some hours he again was ready to hammer away; if he could pass ten kilometres more, he would be extremely happy. The more the travel went on, the lighter was the atmosphere. But then, there was the time of the sunset and the encamping for the night. Along the twilight, the warmth of the day vanished quite fast. Soon Zarah found herself shivering with cold on her spot at the roots of a tree, where Warp had put her down. She extended her hands towards the little fire that was lit, attempting to wrap her blanket more tightly up. However, that did not take the numbness and chill away from her body parts.

 A warm palm appeared soon on her shoulder as she was there quivering with cold. Warp had came round somewhere from the bushes and kneeled behind her. She shocked a bit, though, because proper reliance was not build, yet.

"Are you cold... Zarah...?" he talked with a low tone.

"I can't survive over the night with this only blanket, I'm afraid..." she quietly answered.

"Zarah... it was as cold last night..."

"How did I get along, then, I don't understand..." she turned her regard towards him, meeting his solemn eyes.

"There's one way, I'm just afraid to tell you what I did..." he sighed and looked at the grass that was flattened by his boot.

"What?" she raised her brow a bit and was somewhat afraid again.

"You were... in my arms. I warmed you. But... I don't know if you let me do that again."

She took an anxious breath and felt some horror in her mind. So, when she had been unconscious, such things had happened? She had been totally under the control of this frightening alien? He could basically have been able to kill her if he had wanted. Nevertheless, was there another alternative left? She could not stand the chill in her torn suit. If she had had even a coat, maybe that would have helped, but she practically had no shelter.

 She eyed at him with suspicion but the warmth of his gloved hand on her shoulder felt so nice. The light smoothing the hand did, made her somewhat shiver.  

"I guess I have no choice... but to accept that you..." she whispered with dry throat.

Warp did not answer, only sat right beside her and carefully put his left arm around her shoulders. He gulped many times and hesitated. Yesterday this had not been difficult at all, as she was not conscious, but now... it was ill at ease to even look at that sweet, little creature, not to mention that he was now going to clasp her against his chest. Zarah was very unsure, too, and still quite timorous.

"Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you", he finally had the potential to utter something. He now had got his thick arm around her and very slowly pulled her towards him, then put her to rest against his thorax.

"There... just, um... put your head on my... shoulder and try to sleep, I..." he awkwardly mumbled and did not dare to look at her.

She nestled under his arm and wrapped even the quilt a bit more around her. Oh, how warm it suddenly was! All the chill, all the moisty coldness was away. She closed her eyes and quite soon fell asleep, with the strange intuition that this sturdy and huge alien was actually protecting her. Somehow she just felt being safe. Therefore, he sat and leaned his back against the tree trunk and kept her half-sitting position under his arm. But Warp was not able to sleep properly, but saw strange and short dreams, then gave a start to the real world, again, to hear the night birds holler in the woods.


	8. The distrust

8. The Distrust

-Zurg Tower-

 "Anything?"

"No, sir... nothing, we are afraid..." a grub whined in front of the Dark Lord.

The Emperor let a hissing curse out of his loudspeaker and blasted the unlucky servant with his laser regard. "You get those controls in shape, now!"

"Sir... most of the central processing units are molten together... Darkmatter has used his plasma riffle to..." the insect mumbled back.

"NO ONE says _that name_ aloud in this planet, you hear me? That traitor is not worth of mentioning! He is a dead man to me, and soon shall be that in reality!" Zurg bellowed. "I do not accept delay! The devices _must be_ in shape when I get back!"

"Y-yessir..." was the quivering answer. 

 Zurg embarked to his ship in silent majesty. He was going to take a flight to a nearby ally planet in order to get help to this unattainable situation. The damages of this one control room had disabled nearly all the technical aids of Planet Z, the scale was that large. Warp had chosen well his target; he knew all the weak points of his Master's technology. Now Zurg was extremely embarrassed and fierce because this occasion made him so vulnerable. If the Galactic Alliance had known about the destruction, it would have easily made an end to his empire. However, he had loyal allies; they would help him out in his disaster.

---

 When the dawn slowly approached the crowns of the trees, the light made the delicate features of the sleeping girl visible. Warp was awake, again. Zarah slumbered calmly, leaning her head against his shoulder. He desperately tried to turn his regard away from her by watching the dawning surroundings, but soon could not any more fight against his feelings. His heart burned and forced him struggle with himself, as if a dozen angry lions were besieging this alien. The dreams and anxieties were all about her, he could not resist himself any more.

 He moved his position and lifted the sleeping woman from his side. His metal arm he placed behind her and slowly put her to rest on his knees.

"She didn't wake..." Now he cursed the fact that he had only one normal arm. Would it not have been so much more convenient to hug this tiny being with two normal limbs? He felt about the shoulders and neck of Zarah with his flesh hand and sighed deep, then pressed her body against his chest. He could sense her heart beats against him and it felt... so sweet. But suddenly he startled as she made a small movement. There was the death-scare whether she would wake up and notice everything. Yet... Warp gave in to his surging feelings.

 Taking the glove of his left hand away, he let his fingers glide through her hair. It was so soft, so unbelievably wonderful it felt to touch it. He closed his eyes and leaned back, just allowing his fingers to probe her crown. Next, he bowed down to her and pressed his lips on her forehead. He kept them long there, feeling her little body against his thorax, tightening his embrace. This tiny and slender girl was so lovely to hold... he thought. Moreover, she did not seem to wake up... would he dare to kiss her a bit more... kiss her cheek? He moved her head a bit and took his lips very close to her mouth, observing her for a while. "Do I take a liberty...?" he speculated and felt his hand shake when touching lightly her neck. Warm blood filled the heart of this male. He aimed his lips on hers and began an ardent kiss. Zarah had intoxicated him totally, made his mind burn in odd fever.

 Nevertheless, there and then she woke up, realizing instantaneously what he was doing to her. Warp did not notice the reaction in her side, but kept kissing her lips and enfolding her powerfully. He was now on a very fiery mood. She screamed chokingly and fought back to get away from his arms. Startling abruptly he let her go. Choi jumped a couple of times and ended up sitting to the wet grass. She glared at him in terror, panting and trying to understand.

"What do you want from me?" came a screech from the ground.

Warp stared back at her, his chin stuttering. He was not in his best shape: two day's unshaved stubble decorated his jaw, his hair was a bit greasy and the keeping of late hours had made shadows under his eyes. He exhaled sadly, covering his face with his palm. Agent Z regretted now so much, what he had done, he should have listened to the timid voice in his head that tried to convince him to stop the kissing.

"I'm sorry... I didn't mean to... I'm so sorry." he stammered. He could not pluck up his courage to even peep at her from the middle of his fingers, but scrambled up and turned his back at her. Before he limbed along away, head bowed, he brokenly muttered: "I'm sorry... I'll go away for a while... the food is in my back at the roots of the tree... eat as much as you wish..."

  Zarah leaned to her arms and still sat erect on her position, glowering after the mentally crushed alien. What was he doing to her? And why? _Why_? She possibly could not realize. Discomfort sneaked into her heart, getting her hackles raise lightly.

"What does he want from me? Why did he bring me here? He's been trying to harp on me about walking to a town... but can I trust him at all?"

She went on to think again the recently happened incident. _What_ had he been doing? She certainly was not sitting on his knees when she had fallen asleep. She felt some disgust, but more fear. Why had this man taken her away from Zurg? He said the Emperor would have killed her, though. But he was his henchman, as she remembered... but now had deceived his master... because of her? That was the most logic answer as she now let her brains process the whole scale of the events. So, he must had had some kind of _affection_ towards her... would he had done this otherwise? He had been an evil man, now blazoned that he would never join Zurg again... simply because of seeing something in _her_?

 She inhaled deep a couple of times before stepping to the food bag. The abysses of her mind were still so black of unsteadiness and fear that she could not grasp what was the purpose of Warp concerning her. Though... somehow she was now even more timid as he was away. The place was so silent, so lonely, so gloomy. Whatever possible could hide behind those thick bushes, more monsters to catch her and bring her back to the living hell of Zurg Tower?

 But Warp was very near and made sure that no one would touch the little creature he was so fond of. He gathered his thoughts under grave reflexion. The embarrassment was horrible to bear; it made his chest like filled with a ton of stones. He wiped sweat from his forehead and cringed to his idiotic behaviour.

"What a creep I am! With hard work, I tried to profess her to trust me and what do I do? Why couldn't I keep my feelings inside me? You low swine! You bloody freak!" He was ready to rip his hair again. But that would not help, no, he would be even more abominable if he'd rend even the rest of his hair away. He probed his stubble and thought that his appearance possibly was very repulsive. Could he perhaps try to wash himself a little before traipsing in front of her nose again? No, there was no water near. Therefore, he could not even shave. And what was it with his outfit...? He had been wearing the same undershirt three days now and it felt extremely nauseous. Moreover, he had not taken his space uniform away at all. The hazy morning was still a bit cold, but he decided to do some ventilation for his body and slowly took the upper part of his suit away. It was extremely difficult to do, though he had done this for years. He needed a monkey-wrench to unfasten the nuts of his right arm shield, then pull a couple of layers of alloy structures away from the shoulder part, to step in to loose the shield holder of his right flank. Just after that, he could undress the rest.

 He sat down on a stump there in the middle of all junk and let the fresh air touch his skin. He had a tank top on but it was literally glued on him, so perspiring was his back. The thick steel necklace he had was slimy of sweat. He spent there a plentiful hour and next noticed that he was hungry like a wolf. That would mean crouching back to her, to flood more apologies and try to build again the lost confidence.

 For his happiness, Darkmatter observed that Zarah was eating willingly the rashes he had in his bag, when he stepped back to the camp. So... maybe there was some kind of relation left...? But oh... she screamed as she saw him with his lightened outfit. The woman had precisely had no idea that Warp hid that kind of muscles under his suit. And now it was visible how the morbid blaster arm was connected to him. There was a flexible bio-alloy surface that covered his right shoulder (under the bomb-device which he had detached with the tools), thus giving the beginning to the freaky body part. Fortunately, the shield had been implanted there; it would have been too disgusting even for him to watch the thing if it would have straight begun from his skin. And... Zarah got herself on her legs for thunderstruck.

 Warp could nothing but breathe in for shame and endeavour some awkward conversation.

"Choi... I'm so sorry, I'm so ashamed of what I did... I... I hope you at least can... enjoy the food." He very slowly approached the rations bag, apologising again and again that he had to come back only because he was so hungry.

She responded nothing, only retired a bit further and gazed at his upper body. She was sure that he could crush her with one violent squeeze, if he would have wanted to do that. That blue hairy arm with those steel-strong muscles... it would have been required merely a light gripe from those thick fingers to shatter her frail neck. But outlandish was that he literally fawned upon her, avoiding her regard and constantly wrinkling his forehead. She gnawed the protein cookie she had, to its end, but still felt her stomach hollow. She had not enjoyed properly food in several days: yesterday she had still been too weak to eat almost nothing. Hence, there was no other alternative but to approach that blue crook and ask some more food as the rations bag was now on his lap.

She gathered her courage and gulped to ask, "Can I..."

As Zarah was now right beside him, he put his large hand on her shoulder. Jerking once more, she was ready to jump half a mile away from him, but met his begging eyes.

"Please... don't be mad at me... Choi?" he whispered. "I know I'm everything but a decent and innocent person, but... I entreat you to give me another change. We have to flee my hellish boss; I have to get you away from this periphery, back home."

She did not dare to ask about the morning happenings any more, although she would have wanted. She just took the food and ate herself satiate. In addition, he took the topic forth not for a nanosecond any more, only gradually attempted to get back the confidence.

 After an hour, the refugees left the place. Zarah was that much in condition that she had the power to walk. Her ankles did still hurt, but Warp's medicines had healed them up quite much. Now she timorously evaded him, easily she would have not been persuaded to travel on his shoulder. In addition, they would need to hurry up; the sabotages that Warp did for the security systems of Zurg would be repaired at any moment. If the fugitives were found, it would be their free travel to ¦eol.

--------------- 

 In the midday, a sinister noise came to life in Warp's wrist communicator.

"Beep... beep... beep..."

"Triple quasars! Cannot be!" Darkmatter interjected in panic.

"What is it?" Zarah ran to him. She forgot her distrust for a second because of his sudden exclamation.

Warp opened slowly the lid of his wrist communicator. On the monitor was delineated a 'Z'-letter, as if the device would be ready to receive a holo-transmission.

"Zurg has got his communication gadgets work somehow! He's trying to track me with this damned transmitter!" he banged the communicator in order to prevent the incoming holo. "I thought I fixed this so that he can't contact me!"

Zarah stared at the machine with anxiety. She suddenly gripped his arm, hit the console with her knuckles and slammed the lid shut. As she opened it again, a text had appeared on the screen: 'transmission error: could not receive message'.

Warp inhaled rapidly when the dread cooled down. "How did you do that?"

"I dunno..." she was as petrified and rigid as he was.

"Rotting asteroids... I truly hope the izzard worshipper did not get a trace!" he wiped sweat away from his forehead and attempted to get the heartbeats finally steady. "Phew... Look, Zarah... I guess we keep a pause, I gotta stabilise my nerves... it was like I'd seen a star cruiser full of cloned Zurgs!"

With shaking knees, she also sat down on a rock to eat some lunch. However, she seemed to have lost her appetite totally. The fear of getting captured, landing again to the concentration camp -like cell of Planet Z and falling into torture... the whole consideration was so grievous. She just sat there erect and chewed her nails instead of the ration she should have eaten.

"Zarah... don't get into panic, now. We'll find a way to get you into your own cosy hut. I won't let the purple hazard get you again", Warp soothed her as he noted her desperate behaviour.

She shook her head. "I don't know what to believe here, we're in the middle of an unknown planet in some backwoods... I should never have left home, I should never have achieved the job offer I got and I should never..." She had been a strong woman since this, had gone through the torment without tears. But now she gradually broke down mentally as she deliberated too much the recent occurrences. After a minute she was a maudlin shadow of the determined being she had been this far. Warp stood this no more, but went to her and forcibly took her into his embrace. She fought back and squealed the first seconds, but yielded soon, as her vigour had vanished. But he did not hurt her, no, that would not even come to his mind. He just kept her still on his knees for half an hour and let her cry as much as she wanted against his shoulder. His tender strokes on her hair, the warm enfold and the occasional silent words did solace her somewhat.

-------

 Zurg observed a holo-monitor achieving transfer data. Beside him was a slimy-looking alien that resembled a severely overweighed angling worm or gastropod. This other one was the vice chancellor of Planet Varl, a customary ally of Zurg's empire. The Emperor was in his destination and now used borrowed communication devices.

"I think we have something here... the transmission I sent him was a failure one, for some reason. That would mean that he has got rid of his wrist communicator, which I seriously doubt... what is this solar system?" Zurg looked darkly at his companion.

"That's not under our supremacy, mighty Emperor Zurg. This is the territory of the Galactic Alliance, a periphery, though. Let's see, if we could get any better indications... the signal you received was very weak." the chancellor began to give the computer instructions. Soon the holo gave a bit better image.

"The solar system of Yrrz... but what planet? There are 25 populated planets on this dratted system according to your software!" Zurg growled.

"Unfortunately, Lord Zurg, we can not get any better information. The track signal came somewhere from this system... I suggest that we send a couple of droids in to see, if we could find him."

"You do still have the old probe droids I gave you as a gift years ago?" Zurg asked.

"Yes, my lord. We'll send them in. Right away. Ten of them are in good condition, we'll put them to observe the main planets."  


	9. The change in Zarah

9. The Change in Zarah

 The day's journey was very strenuous for both Warp and Zarah. The trail went through cliffy hills and almost impassable clefts. It involved climbing and jumping over abysses. Zarah, who was yet frail after the violence she had experienced, still attempted to push forward with her full strength. She did not want the help he offered her. Among all she was scared, emotionally tired and jarring cramps teased her feet. He therefore felt creeping odium because of the fact that Zurg might trace them and sadness because she did not trust him. He would have been ready to lend a hand and even carry her, if she only had allowed it.

 When the night fell, it was the time for camping, again. Warp eyed at his digital thermometer and forecasted that the night would be warm. She sighed with deep easement in her mind; she could sleep beside the fireplace, alone. He did not have even the courage to ask that if he could warm her. They both sunk into the world of dreams without a quarrel, though. 

---------- 

 In a black cloud were distinguished two eyes. Nevertheless, they were not regular eyes, they were hollow. Deep and hollow sockets. Below them was another hole and below that, a grinning mouth with bony gums. It was a face of a scull. However, soon after its appearance it began to click its jaw and a howl came forth from between its dead lips, with a cold breath, towards the spectator...

 Zarah woke up in a shock. She had seen nightmares, again. And no wonder why. Her state was very incommodious; she shook like in ague. In a couple of hours the temperature had gone down so much that it was freezing out there. Her body parts were all numb and the coldness, the creeping decrease of the heat had made her starchy all over. Her teeth clattered against each other as she attempted to wrap the quilt around her more tightly. It was not supposed to be a cold night, was it?

 Fifteen minutes she lay shivering on the ground. The small campfire did not facilitate her ease at all, how close it she ever tried to be. Why could she have not had more clothes? Would she now die to hypothermia after all these experiences? But, there was the alternative she avoided in her mind till the last minute. Turning her regard, G'Deneb distinguished Warp sleeping calmly in a half-sitting position leaning against a rock. He had no inconvenience in his warm space suit.

 She blew once more into her palms and rubbed them together. No. That was impossible. Could she do that? Could she go to awaken him and ask... No, she possibly could not, she thought with fright and shame. But she began to quiver more and more, there was no other change but to gather the courage.

 Warp startled awake feeling a knock on his arm. He rubbed his eyes to comprehend, what was going on. "...Zarah?" he whispered as he saw the girl kneeled beside him. In the darkness, he could distinguish her shivering like a fledgling without the wing shelter of its dam on a frost morning. She had a very coy and embarrassed expression and could not get a word out of her stammering mouth. A little teardrop glimmered in the corner of her eye.

Warp's mouth drooped open. He felt his heart suddenly very heavy and, pity; the very new emotion in him that stemmed beyond a couple of days totally got him annexed. He wined his arm around her and pulled her towards him. "Just come to me, li'l poor thing. I'll keep you warm. I'll keep you warm", he smiled sadly at her, stroking casually her shoulder.

She did not produce a syllable, but immediately nuzzled under his arm and pressed her cheek against his chest. She was overwhelmed by the warmth, now the cool air bit her no more. Zarah fell asleep almost instantly, as the strong and protective arm of his was firmly around her. Warp watched her with a hearty smile for a couple of minutes, before he also opened slightly the curtain of soporific. 

---------

"Commander, do you copy? This is Star Cruiser 42."

"Ranger Lightyear? Any sign of life from Xaneda?" the voice of Nebula answered from the comm. channel.

"No, sir. We're jammed to Rigel, unfortunately. The local custom officers asked our help, to catch a couple of criminals that were smuggling illegal lightsabres to Trade World. We're a bit late, but we caught those knaves", Buzz spoke back determined.

"I wish you would hurry up! This is almost an emergency, already!"

"Sir, we do the best we can. Over and out."

Four solemn faces watched the black vacuum in front of them as their cruiser glided forward.

-----

 The morning lightened with a feather-like aurora. It forecasted worsening weather. Still, now, the sun granted its friendly and warm rays between the treetops, above the camp where Warp and Zarah slept. He gradually yawned himself awake, stretched and wiped his nose. The girl beside him puffed calmly and had sometime during the night cuddled up very deep under his arm. The corners of his mouth rose up to a tender expression as he shook her a bit awake.

"Zarah... it's morning..."

But she only whined a bit and pressed her cheek more against his side. "I  wanna... sleep..." she moaned drowsy.

Warp got his eyes wide open. "She must be talking in her sleep..." he chuckled suspiciously in his mind and shook her more. Lazily she opened her eyelids and evaluated him her head atilt for a second. Then she burst to a short laugh, covering her mouth with her palm.

Warp was fully puzzled. "What is funny...?" he stared back at her, his face in a light smile.

"You have grown a beard overnight!" she giggled behind her hand.

He grazed his jaw and noticed his yesterday stubble quite long. Picking up a small mirror from his pocket, he soon burst to guffaws as he saw himself. Bluish black, short beard covered his cheeks and chin. Zarah giggled aloud to his amazement.

"We gotta find water today, I ain't getting along with my new appearance, gotta shave this hair carpet away!" he chortled and began to dig the breakfast from his bag.

Zarah felt also about her hair and noticed it very greasy and sticky, not to mention the other dirt her form had gathered during these five days of imprisonment and fleeing. "I guess my braid needs a washing-machine, too..." she joked to him.

 Warp was stunned about the new mood of Zarah. She seemed to have lost her fear totally towards him. He saw now a completely new side of her, under her timid shell was a playful and a bit sarcastic woman. He reflected hardly the reason for this change and only could understand that it somehow related to the last night. He was right, it was just because he had gently achieved her in her trouble and given her shelter, in addition that he had not mocked her in her dilemma. The old Warp in him would have enjoyed spitefully seeing a person freeze to dead. But now... the change had been churning. 

 He did not mention with a word about this topic, he wanted to keep the atmosphere as it was now, nimble and comfortable. Likewise, it warmed enormously his heart to see her laugh and smile. Finally, he was allowed to meet the woman in that holograph he adored.

 During the forenoon, they spotted a little river along their trek. Warp supplemented at first the drink rations and then rooted soap forth from his backpack (a question to wonder is that he had soap and a mirror with him in the wild forest, but not a tent). He broke it and gave the other half to Zarah. "Here goes yours. Have a nice hair bath!" The view was quite absurd as they both bent forward down to the water to wash their hair, knelt on the river bend. Warp was fast with his head and began to shave while Zarah let the water caress her long locks and purify them from the dust and grease. As the wash was done, they encountered the problem that he had not a single towel with. He dried his chin to some spare shirt and combed his short-cut coiffure dry, but she struggled with a huge problem. Twining and twisting the water off from the hair like from some wet cloth, was her strategy. And after that measure, it was extremely shaggy and rigid. She did not know how to untangle the mess.

 The girl sat on the ground and groped her lockings with her fingers when Warp came to her.

"D'ya need help with that red jungle?" he squatted beside Choi, friendly touching her shoulder.

"I'd need a rake, thank you", she sighed and thought the situation totally impossible. But she was surprised to feel that Warp started to comb the shags open. His little pocket comb was maybe not the most ideal tool for this, but it did the job, though a bit slowly. He relaxed and rambled something about his years in Star Command while continuing his labour. He enjoyed it enormously, feeling her hair glide in his hand, getting touch her crown and shoulders without needing to ask permission. There were moments that he did no actually comb, but just stroked her locks and pretended doing something else.  And Zarah, she answered silently his questions and narrated her past, but very felt odd under his touches. This frightening alien was so mild towards her. As he once slid his fingertips along the side of her neck, for the same time gathering her hair, she felt an itch in her heart, a weird itch that got her quiver a bit. And it was not fear, it was a lovely emotion.

 Gradually the yesterday's menace was only a random black cloudlet in the sky. Though, the real sky grew darker as a massive cloud pulp advanced from the horizon. The wind had gradually increased and the smell of rain was in the air. Nonetheless, for the travellers, the trek was like a game. Zarah had begun to quiz with Warp, just like she had teased XR playfully when the robot had been her assistant for a couple of weeks. He was just charmed about this and got easily his sarcastic mood back. Laughing he chased her as she threw some totally absurd comments about his mechanical arm; how it would be convenient to turn the shifting hand part to an umbrella when it would rain or draw a collapsible frying-pan from it to do some cookings. He was very delighted to hear her jingling laugh as she ran forth and the passage progressed for the while. The land was a bit easier now, yet, in front of them was another rock area. 

"By the way, Mister Alien, where are we gonna spend the night? It can come a cataclysm from those clouds", she informed him when they had stopped their cat-and-dog run.

"Whee... I didn't come to think of that when I packed my stuff... I ain't got a tent. We gotta find a cave or relevant..." he bethought himself.

"I know! You log a couple of trees and build us a cabin! I believe that a chain saw is a standard equipment of that arm."

"Why you little..." he chuckled and was ready to run after her, again, but suddenly heard something from behind the rocks they passed.

"Shht!" he gripped quickly her shoulders and stopped her. Peeping warily behind the stone got a stern expression rise up on his face.

"What...?" she barely had the time to breathe.

"Now, hide!" he whispered swiftly and pressed her down. They luckily were able to cover themselves behind the big rock. In the valley in front of them wandered a robot that seemed to scan the environments. A low hum echoed back to them.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's an imperial probe droid. Zurg has tracked us, somehow. Maybe he was able to do that through the failed transmission he attempted yesterday."

"Is this our end...?" she panted in terror. Cold shivers of death-fear went along her back.

"No. That's not gonna happen. Say bye to your Master and lick the dirt!" he groaned hate in his eyes and turned his arm to a plasma riffle. With one shot, he blasted the droid into a million pieces. A mushroom cloud rose up to the highnesses. Zarah slowly got up and stared at the remains, then his smouldering weapon arm. She was quite horrified to see the true power of that freaky body part.

"...T-That was a big b-bang..." she stuttered.

"I'd say a big crunch. Come on, we must get our butts outta here. I hope that the metal junk won't send any signal back to the One and Only Izzard." He took Zarah's hand and rushed forward.

"B-but will he detect the destroyed droid? Uf... Usually those have remote control and when the signal goes off, t... the suspicions begin..." she panted when they jumped over the rocks and hummocks.

"That's not the thing to be chickened out now. I just am afraid that there are more of those nasty spies. Though, I wonder why that kind of an out-of-fashion model was taking the job, he has a lot better machines."

"Maybe it tells about the fact that the control devices are not yet prepared?" she asked.

"You're right... hopefully. It's a fact that the older stuff is controlled through different machines than those I dumped. Wonder from what landfill that was picked up. Unless... he has contacted ally planets."

"How much... does he have allies?"

"Go figure. He's promising glory and prices to ev'ry passer-by if they join the dark side and then he often gives his antiquated tech to those who let him take the control over them." 

The first heavy raindrops fell towards the ground in the middle of their rush.

"C'mon, we gotta play now the Flintstones and find shelter from some cave", Warp pointed out, leading her to a further looming cavity.

-------------

"Coming, Star Command? Cruiser 42 approaching the target. We have tried palpation connections, but there seems to be no sign of functioning", Buzz talked to the comm. link.

"Keep on going. I want to know what's wrong over there. This is not normal", the voice of Nebula answered.

"Yes, sir, over and out."

Xaneda's second moon rose in front of 42's windshield.

"Yuf! Looks kinda lifeless there, does it?" XR commented the mother planet and its other moon.

"What do you think now, ranger Nova? Do you still agree that there are no problems?" Buzz asked Mira.

"Eh... I still _hope_ being right... but I feel emptiness around me... like there were no voices of life down there..." she sighed and observed the view.

"Yea... feel the Force... C'mon, ya cannot tell me Choi's a goner! My babe!" XR whined.

"We'll find out..." Buzz clicked the landing engines on.

 A dismal landscape was there to wait for Team Lightyear as the cruiser landed and the crew had stepped out of it. Burned buildings, wrecks, ashes... half of the forest beside the mining area had burned down, too. No sign of intelligent life was anywhere.

"What has happened here...?" Booster gaped at the ruins.

"We got to find some clue. XR, scan the area. Blast, the Commander was right... if we could have got here earlier..." Buzz clenched his hands.

"This has not happened yesterday, ranger Lightyear", Mira noted.

"That's true... but we have to find out now who did this. And where are all the workers? Commander told that here lived a hundred men! Yet... I believe the culprit is not a stranger to us..."

"...Zurg...?" Booster added.

"That's the most logic answer. His hornets could do this."

 For the while, XR scanned the environments with his build-in radar implements. He soon found marks of the destruction causes. "Report going on, folks! Possible causers plasma bombs... current presence of human/alien life forms zero. Possible occurrence: six to seven days ago, Capital Planet time. Marks on ground: transportation vehicles, possible combat machines... and sort of told-you-it's-Zurg-stuff."

 The team walked forward and inspected sadly the remains of the research centre. Buzz contacted the Commander and explained the situation. The Captain was next told to find the possible remains of Zarah's dwelling and ship, if they would exist. Zeb Nebula was positive that Zurg was behind this, although there was no clear evidence of it, yet.

 XR logged all the needless and important particulars on the way. One strange detail was that the supposed mining tunnel was covered with a heavy metal shield.

"Something has been here, after the destruction and put that thing over there. Nebula told the mine was open.  Someone is after landanah, after the new technology and wants to get more solid..." Buzz meditated with a monotonic voice.

"And this 'someone', obviously our neighbour Sultan Zurgie is gonna come back, unlock that door with a nice open sesame and continue the punctuated mole job..." XR whistled.

"Hey, what's that, over there?" Mira pointed with her finger forth. They had approached Zarah's old dwelling that was still intact.

"There's even a ship in front of it!" Boosted noticed.

But, in vain the rangers searched for any signs of the missing personnel. The dwelling's insides was a chaos; the luggage of Zarah had been thrown here and there, the clothes and personal items torn and broken in order to find possible information disks. With disappointment, Buzz shook his head and contacted the Commander for the last time. Team Lightyear was now ordered to stay in Deneveria until reinforcements and repairers would come there from Star Command headquarters.


	10. Falling in love in a wrong place

10. Falling in Love in a Wrong Place, in a Wrong Time

The next morning opened cold and rainy on Planet Yrmh. Notwithstanding, Zarah and Warp slept convenient. They had found a very nice cave with plenty of room. The fire had crackled joyfully the whole night and made the cliff hole very snug. She was not forced any more to sleep under his arm, but had found a nice corner with soft sand as her mattress.

 As they had both yawned the remains of the sleep dust away, Warp decided that the weather was way too bad to continue the trip. He had namely no waterproofs with. Of course, they both fretted the phantom menace, but tried to keep the mood lightsome with conversations. Occasionally the atmosphere turned quite gloomy, though. Warp kept asking a lot about Zarah's past, in his admiration he was eager to know more about her. Nevertheless, as he had come to know her a bit through her palm book diary, he was now faced with similar stories; a sad saga of a woman that had seen only sorrow and loneliness. It hit him deep, making him wrinkle his forehead and look solemnly at the ground. On the side he reflected his own life, how wasted it felt, now. Years of serving Zurg, his whole, brilliant youth mislaid for robbing and violence... What could he have been, if he had chosen otherwise? Would it be too late to start a new life, still... he was not a very young man, any more. The years approached his thirties; the dawn of the life would begin sooner or later.

 It was some kind of alleviation for Zarah to dig up the more obscure facts of her existence. She had never actually talked about them, not let the light despair of her loneliness echo to anyone's ears. She subconsciously believed that she had found some kind of a soul mate to listen to her, videlicet similar emotions she had as Warp, while she hearkened him. 

 Towards the afternoon Warp did again some ventilation to his upper body. Luckily, the atmosphere was merrier, again.

Zarah chuckled as she observed his comic-looking commissions. "What kind of preserving jar is that space suit of yours 'cause you need a wrench?"

"It's just this shoulder part and the flank shield of my right arm... then it's just take-it-over-your-scull..." he tweaked the tool. 

"Sorry to ask, but why was that weapon attached to you? Isn't it quite troublesome to do daily things with that kind of body part?"

"Well... ya can get used to ev'rything..." he sighed. "I had to learn to be quite much left-handed. But... there are times that I've regretted the loss of a normal arm, like now..." his expression was reasoning.

Zarah was quiet for a while, but her eyes got brighter as Warp next sat down on the rock with his tank top on. A wide smile spread on her face as she evaluated his muscles. Fortunately, he watched elsewhere. She actually now considered him quite handsome, though at first she had been so afraid of him. She liked well-build men and he if who was definitely in that category.

"Um... sorry, gotta change my shirt, too..." he out of the blue said and gave a glance at her, facing her cunning smirk.

"Eh... what did you say...?" she woke up from her dreams and looked totally perplexed.

"Nothing... I guess it doesn't tease you if I change my shirt..." he said back a sparkle in his eye. He knew exactly what that smile had meant and as he was furthermore egoistic, he received it self-satisfied.

"No, no, just do as you want!" she raised her brows and was just ready to achieve more feast for the eyes. This time she still was a bit more careful with her open expressions. 

 By the night, Warp invented that they could grill their rations in the campfire. Zarah thought it was a fun idea and sat beside him to put the protein cookie into a stick. As they grilled there, Warp began to feel the itches in his abdomen. She sat very close, giggling to the roasting food. He sensed his heart beats getting faster when he slowly extended his left hand towards her shoulders. A gleam ignited in his eyes, the refection of the fire that excruciated his inners. How much he wanted to close her into his arms, kiss her lips so fervently that she would pass out. His fingers approached her long braid and he let it slide through his hand.

Zarah winced a little and turned her questioning regard at him.

"Um... I just... wondered... could I do you a new coiffure...?" he rapidly made a fake story. He certainly did not want to scare her the way he had previously done.

"Go ahead, if ya wonna. It's messy after the night. Still, I thought ya wan'ed to have a snack", she responded and gnawed her grilled meal.

Dreamingly he unbraided her hair slowly, tenderly. When he had gathered the locks again to make a new hairdo, his hand did not obey his brain synapses any more. Instead, he just stroked her soft hair, soon slid his fingers to her neck, beginning to fondle it. He could almost instantly feel that she quivered a bit under his touch. This was the end of his dummy play, he moved to sit closer to her. As he reached her expression, the fire in him only increased. She squatted there her eyes closed, her arms lazily lying on her lap. She inhaled deep, seemingly rapt of his caresses.

"My li'l poor Zarah..." he whispered barely hearing into her ear. The girl who he had endeavoured to conquer, was suddenly completely molten in front of him? Closing his arms around her, he lifted her up to sit in his warm lap. 

 Choi could not comprehend at all, what it was with her. Why did she suddenly feel like this, after all the horror and panic this alien had caused her? She went now completely feeble just because of those little caresses. Her whole being jerked, when she felt his lips caressing her cheek. Again, her name was whispered into her ear, so mildly, so softly. She was taken slowly into his embrace and lastly was granted with a long, profound kiss on her lips. That was something that made the little woman absolutely lose the sense of time and place.

 But, an odd and cold fear suddenly filled Warp's heart. He knew the cruel fact; the fact that he would have to part with her, even quite soon. How long would he feel her beside him? As they would reach the capital, he would have to disappear, for her and his own safety. He was now a double outlaw, hunted by two warriors, everywhere he would go. His only hope would be to sink under the ground, to find a place of similar wretched refugees as he was. And she... he did not know how he would explain this to her. And the best way for that definitely was not this, not the kissing and flooding of tender words. So he loosened her from his clutch and wished her good night, curling up alone to his own sleeping post.

 Poor Zarah was now under false anticipations. With a wistful smile, she sat in her corner, grazing the spot on her cheek where Warp's lips had lastly been. She had felt so safe in his strong arms, like there was not the ruthless world at all surrounding them. She went on thinking with her wild imagination what would happen when they would reach the destination. He would come with her, certainly, maybe they could start something together... she was quite naïve in her thoughts, maybe because he was the first man ever in her life who had given her such tokens of affections. In her lonely orbit of her life, she had remained totally solitude; she had had no crushes, or was it her shyness that had prevented that? In every case, she had to admit in her heart that she had fallen for Warp, just in this little time. Her eyes had opened just today to think what was actually his role. He had exposed his life for just to save her. He had left his whole existence behind him, just to flee the evilness he could not stand any more. She knew she was deeply indebt, and the emotions only grew stronger through that, at the same time when she noticed the care and fondness he allowed her.

 Next morning the rain continued still its hubbub. Warp structinized his coordinate locator and pointed out that they had only a plentiful ten kilometres left. Zarah was jocund like a little bird on a warm day, kept chirping and laughing at every word he said. He watched back at her with a painful sorrow smile. Now she was so happy, happy to be with _him_... But, tomorrow, if they could continue the travel, it all would end...

 In the night as he was sitting beside the fire, she came to him and on her own sat very beside him. Anguish maimed his soul, was it now that for the worst possible moment she had started to feel like this? No, no... why did the time and hap had to treat them like this, Warp asked himself. Now he wished that she would be still afraid of him, so that the farewell would not be that poignant. She seemed to be so agog and eyed him with shy, but mellow regards. He did not have the courage to awaken her from her dreams; he would leave the explanations for the last moment. And of course he wished the best, that some kind of chance would happen so that she could stay with him...

----------------

 The reinforcements gradually approached Xaneda and its second moon. Team Lightyear was given now other instructions; they were not needed to supervise the guard troops. Commander Nebula sent them to the proximity of the Zeta Quadrant, for he had certain expectations.

"You report any activity in the near space of Zurg's Empire!" was the rigorous order.

"Sir, the Zeta Quadrant is very large. Do you believe that we could scan..." Mira answered to the comm. channel while Buzz set going the acceleration engines.

"I have a feeling that your presence over there is needed sooner or later... Let's check it out for a few days if anything happens. I'm still surprised that there has not been any contact from the dark side. Usually the friendly face of the Emperor appears on my comm. screen in a few hours he has woven his cobwebs. But, you keep an eye on him!" the Commander finished.

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, XR, warm up the radars." Buzz informed before the jump gate to the warp was open.

 The borders of the Zeta Quadrant were cold and silent. Buzz remembered from old experience that shuttles of Zurg commonly lurked behind asteroids and guarded the edge areas of the Black Empire.

"Odd. It has never been this silent here", he frowned through the windshield.

"Maybe Zurg takes a nap!" XR commented lazily from his corner and got everyone to roll his or her eyes.

"Androids do not sleep, according to my knowledge", Booster noted.

"Who knows what that monster is? At least he didn't sleep when he killed my father!" Buzz disapproved.

"At least zero stuff in radar. No folks around. Unless the cloak guy has invented a way to by-pass it. Um... not even energy traces from last 48 hours... this goes over my circuits", the robot added.

"Let's fly a bit further... there's something odd here, now..." Buzz gripped the controllers and turned the ship into move.

---------------------

 Zurg was slowly returning from Planet Varl. He was very disappointed to the work of his ally. There had not been a single trace of Darkmatter or the disappeared engineer. Only some disturbing reports had come from the probe droids that had been sent to Yrrz, the signals of the five of them had been lost because of a reason or another. Hence, for Warp and Zarah's luck, the Emperor was no able to suspect anything in the cost of the one blasted droid.

 A black thundercloud shadowed Zurg's mind even more as he had not been able to contact his Star Command base spy devices or the infiltrators. For some reason the frequencies the technology of Varl used, were not sufficient to get any transfer rate from the direction of Capital Planet.  And what waited for him on his home planet, got his vessels dilate for boiling blood. Nothing was in order, none of the broken devices worked yet. For him the hours were now croaking, grub-grilling and sitting testy in his throne.

---------------

 The next morning the forest refugees woke up to face the friendly rays of the sun. When Zarah was back against Warp, he engraved his face into his palm and moaned in emotional despair. Ten kilometres... it would take maybe six hours. How much he now wished that he could just take her on his shoulder and run away, far away...

 She was now a lot stronger and spry after two days' rest. The metres seemed to go as if she had flown; her little being was very energetic and wiry when she was in her condition. Her emotions affected a lot her state; the brighter, the tougher she was. Little by little, the forest grew thinner, and a nebulous city could be distinguished far in the horizon. Zarah kept asking Warp why was he in low spirits, but she did not get a proper answer. He only seemed to steal a glance at his timer every two seconds.  

"What is it, Warp?" she inquired.

"Zarah... I tell you... when we are there." He pointed forth with his finger.

 The last cliff was now climbed. Under the travellers spread a valley with buildings, tensing towards the core of the capital, in the distances. Coldness filled Warp's heart as he inspected her jubilant expressions. It was the time to tell her the truth, leave her, let her wander alone to the destination. He stepped beside her, offering the palm book.

"Here you will find all the information you could ever have about Zurg Tower, armaments of The Itchy Izzard, the spies in Star Command... whatever ya wanna know, it's here. I've programmed it there just for you. So... when you make the drill, you tell your boss about the traitors and so on..."

"Okay, then, let's go!" she exclaimed him with bright eyes and was to pick up his hand. But she met his grave face and got her mouth open for wonder.

"What... is it?" she astonished.

He just pointed at the valley with his blue finger.

"You go on now, Zarah... you'll be safe, there", Warp looked down to her. He cried in his mind, the emotional crowding reflecting from his eyes. 

"But... what about you? Are you... _not _coming with me?" she gazed at him suspiciously.

"No... You just go. I'll find a place somewhere, I'll be alright."

Zarah's eyes suddenly got wet and she sniffed her nose. "Why...? Oh, my goodness, I have not even thanked you for saving my life and now you tell me that you're going to leave me? But why? I thought you wanted to..." 

Warp kneeled in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked deep into her eyes his forehead wrinkled with agony. "Zarah... please try to understand...I'm an outlaw. I could possibly not come with you. It would predispose you to danger as well as me. I will be hunted by two quarters for this on; I'll be safe nowhere in the outdoors. If I'd come with you..." he sighed deep "...I'd only find myself in jail. And that would be the best place for Zurg to find me. No. I'll sink under the ground, I won't exist any more."

Zarah broke to tears and pressed her head under his chin, wining her arms tight around his neck. "NO! You can't tell me that you..."

"No, I won't take my life if that's what you think... I'll find a place to hide... I just won't exist as me any more... And... I beg you to give me one favour. Please don't mention me with a single word when you go on. Don't tell anyone about me. Just say you fled alone. That's for the safety of the both of us." After his sorrow-filled sentence, he took her into his embrace and held her long there against his chest. She sobbed like a little girl who had lost her mother into a concourse. Suddenly he remembered something and loosened her a bit, delved his collar and picked out the heavy steel necklet he had. He unlocked it and pressed it into Zarah's palm. "You keep this... in case you want to remember me..."

"I'll... never... meet you again...?" she pleaded him with her eyes not to say the words she did not want to learn.

"I'm afraid so... but maybe, maybe some day, who knows..." Warp whispered and took her back into his clasp. He pressed his lips hard on hers and caressed her fierily for a moment. She answered sobbingly to his kisses, the woe of falling again into her loneliness in her mind. She admitted herself that he was more than a friend to her, more than a brother, more than a life-saviour. And... she would again be rejected in her own sad world, only a remembrance as her company.

As Choi left him and began to traipse towards the town, he heard her last teary words echoing long in his ears: "I will never forget you, Warp..." He sat long on a rock on the cliff and watched her turning to a small spot beneath the downhill.


	11. The last farewell

11. The Last Farewell

Tears blurred Zarah's vision, as she stumbled forwards. How could she have been so blind not to predict this coming? Of course, there would be no future with Warp; she would have to dispossess the image of him from her mind. In addition, there were a lot more crucial things than weep after men! She had been sent here to make an emergency call to Star Command; this was her big mission, to save herself and the miserable captives. But, then again she knew that this was not her merit, but _his,_ she would be dead without _him_, rotting now in some fast grave on Planet Z. Pang grasped her heart, making the despair even more profound.

"Now, run, run..." she rammed sense into her head. She had approached the paved streets of the suburb, the stores and smithery loomed further there. The roads were noiseless, only some random aliens roamed lazily here and there.

"I have to find somebody to tell me where the local ranger bureau is!" she cogitated, searching for a helper with her regard. And, because of some whim of the time-randomness, there lumbered a man dressed in space ranger uniform down the nearby alley. She accelerated her pace and yelled after the cop.

"Please, wait...!" she panted.

The man turned around and eyed at her suspiciously. Now she apprehended, what was the purpose of his glance. Well, she was not quite plausible. With her messy and torn overalls, greasy hair, dirty faces with tear wakes, she looked like a beggar from the bushes.

"Please... could you lend a hand and take me to the Star Command Bureau?"

"Um... what is your... purpose? If you want to find a place to stay, I recommend the overnight home. It's..." the police began quite unfriendly.

This got her guts boil and she steeled her attitude, taking her identity card forth, repairing her coiffure a bit and wiping the dust off her face. "I am an authorised civilian engineer of Star Command; I suggest you would leave such honours away as treating me like a dosser!"

The man startled and took a quick look at the picture in the card, then her. With affluent apologies, he invited her to his hovercraft speeder that waited behind the corner.

 In fifteen minutes, they had reached the aim. As this was just some periphery of the Galactic Alliance, much ranger enforcements were not needed. A small, two-stored building served as the office. But now the lazy life of this remote place turned upside down.

 Zarah's being caused a chaos. She was almost instantly recognised from the database where missing persons were enrolled. A flock of rangers swarmed around her, making her anxious and curious questions; who was she, how was she here, where had she come from. In the middle of the bustle, a captain leaded her to the comm. room, where she could instantly contact Star Command Headquarters.

 The rash face of Commander Nebula was soon in the video monitor. "Miss G'Deneb! You're alive! Where are you? What has happened? I was told that everything has been destroyed in Deneveria!"

"I was captured by Zurg, but I fled! I'm in a hurry, we have to get the rest of the workers out of Planet Z! And I have very urgent information for you, there are several traitors that have infiltrated Star Command and may be spying you for this very moment! You go on to arrest them immediately and then prepare to send troops to Planet Z!" she nearly squalled into the comm. device.

"What? Where have you got your information? Where are you? We have to send a patrol to get you out of there!"

"I'm on Planet Yrmh, the solar system of Yrrz, coordinates sector 49 of Iota Quadrant, the capital Jabaduhudd, local Star Command Bureau! I'm transferring now some information through a connection cable from my palm book to you. Here are the traitors, go and get them now. Also, here are the places documented that contain Zurg's spy devices. They're not many and they're easy to disconnect." She plugged the cord to the main computer and uploaded the data.

"Wait a moment, I monitor the patrols a bit... it seems that there are no star cruisers very near, it takes a while before the first one can land there... oh, wait, star cruiser 42 seems to be on a nigh quadrant!" Nebula shouted back. Soon the channel was triple-connected: the amazed face of Buzz appeared in the other software window.

"Miss G'Deneb! We are on our way to get you!" Lightyear blurted after getting the instructions from both Zarah and the Commander. "The hyperdrive generator counts the seconds to activate the jump gate. We'll be there in two hours! Over and out!" He vanished from the monitor.

 The Commander kept the link open until Team Lightyear would surely have Zarah in their ship.  He crammed questions over her head about what had happened, how she had fled and got so much information. She left almost all the answers incomplete, just explained that she was too exhausted actually not to remember how she had done everything. According to her swore promise, she would not give any secrets away of Warp. Her lips would remain sealed. Nebula saw how burnt-out she was and finally finished the interrogation-like questioning.

 Two hours later star cruiser 42 landed engines roaring on the small flight deck of the bureau. Choi stood at the entrance sustained by one of the local rangers. When her part of the mission was now over, she had no force left, but was weary and listless. She was completely unknown for the rest of Team Lightyear, except for XR, who rolled in a flash to hug her and shed sugary words. Fatigued she saluted everybody, and as she attempted to step in the ship, she stumbled and fell full length on the floor.

"Ma-am, are you all right?" Buzz asked, helping her up.

"No," she earnestly clarified, the eyes getting filled with tears again. "All I just would like to do is to sleep a week in row and get some tranquillizers."

"I'm sorry, Miss, but we have to go through a questioning before we can let you rest", he uneasily continued. "I was told that you have got some extraordinary information of Planet Z. Several patrols of space rangers are on their way to free the rest of the captives you told there to be through the comm. link."

She only groaned something for an answer.

"Guys, you won't treat my baby like that!" XR snapped behind the team, "We're gonna make her feel comfortable, why dontcha, Missy Blue, go to the gally and bring her a blue angel with a little umbrella..." he glanced at Mira who frowned back. She still went to get her some food.

 Zarah was put to sit on a soft chair and a quilt was spread on her shoulders. Buzz and Mira talked low to each other about her state, then asked the questions. The result was that they understood her being left alone Planet Z in a way she could not actually recall, in addition of that she had been tortured, that she had wandered a week in the forest and so on. The story was addle and confusing, full of gaps and empty plot lines.

 "Shouldn't we let her rest?" Booster whispered compassionately to Mira and Buzz after an age of heated debate.

"I know how you feel, I can see too, how exhausted she is. I haven't seen anything alike during my career. Even that, that she could have left Planet Z alone, is something before unheard", Buzz added. "I think that there's not everything correct in her story. Either she suffers from a shock or then she's hiding things. I have the credence that someone has helped her, but she doesn't want to reveal it."

"We have to get her to Star Command HQ for rest. I thought we could have used her as a guide during the rescue operation of the rest of the captives, but she's not capable of that", Buzz concluded.

"No problemo, folks, I just hoover the stuff from her fella computer into 42 and way we go! Wow, here's a pretty holo map of Zurgie's tower! Cool!" XR commented from the corner.

"I truly wonder where she has got all that information..." Buzz fingered his chin but then ordered to take her to sleep. Next the team entered the bridge.

"We'll take a flight to HQ and then move on instructed by her computer notes." 

 XR was left to watch over Zarah. He tried to lighten up the atmosphere with joking, but the sole job she could do was sobbing. The image of Warp in her mind did not tarnish, it remained there like a stigma. She still could feel his touch, his gentle hand on her shoulder as she lied there. His lips caressing her cheek warmly... The only man ever had cared for her would remain a spectre, wandering slowly in her nerves, filling her mind with despondency. Never would he be there for her, maybe... that was the most logical conclusion. She would have to learn to live without these illusions, go back to her career, back to her perpetual loneliness.

The robot took her flaccid hand into his and inspected her, his eyes wrinkled. "I don't wonna see my Goldie sad! What is it? You can tell uncle XR the bad thingie."

Whacked she eyed him and whispered, "I've lost something..."

The robot nodded it in his mind: there was somebody else; she had not done this alone. But who it was, where, that cognizance was tight walled up beyond her subconscious.

She turned her face towards the wall and cradled into the comforter, squeezing the steel necklace with her hand that was around her neck. 

 Briefly, 42 darted to Star Command and then whizzed back without the engineer. She was transported to the med lap to get therapy.

"Now, way ahead to face Zurg!" Booster boosted as the ship reached the light speed.

"If the situation is as it was when Miss G'Deneb left the planet, I mean the controls destroyed, we have good changes to get our own men back."

"Wonder how she was able to do that all alone...to destroy entire control rooms..." Mira commented.

"Well, she was a walking mystery! Didn't you see her, she had not a single bag with her, that kind of clothes, not even a flagon!" Booster shook his head.

"Troops, we have to leave that debate now aside. We'll soon join the other cruisers that are gathered to the near space of Planet Z!" was Buzz' last severe word. 

---Planet Z---

 Sweat trickled along every grub's forehead as they connected a cable to the electricity source.

"If this ain't gonna work, the Emperor will broil us!" one brain-pod remarked. The hard reparation work was in its conclusion. Everyone kept their thumbs up as one bug attached the cord. A drone filled the room, the vast range of monitors and central processing units flickering, whining and rattling. A beep of an initialization software told that they had made a success. It scanned the disks and errors in a few seconds, then launched the main controlling devices and drivers. All the workers of the Dark Lord hopped in the air and whooped, a couple of them rushed to tell the pleasant news to their Master.

 Zurg had not delighted sentiments but rampaged about the delay. Next he rushed to his main monitor and activated it. The first job was to connect Star Command's spyware and check out the movements of that place. But a horrible curse overflowed from his loudspeaker as the monitor showed only cosmic noise and plasma spots.

"What is this, I ordered you to put it in shape!" Zurg roared.

"We did, we did, at least we see, that there's an army of ships approaching this planet. Have you invited guests, mighty evil Emperor?" a brain pod asked.

"What...?" Zurg winced and tuned the monitor to catch the image of the near space. Tens of star cruisers contrasted against the black vacuum, the familiar and cattish number 42 in the first fling.

This was a moment of extreme terror for him. For the first time he actually was the target of an attack

"Graah! Hornets in job, now! Why did no one warn me about this?"

A hundred grubs spread around the controls like cockroaches swarm when being encountered by light.

 The fight was short and heated but efficient for Star Command, yet Zurg was not completely defeated. Knowing the locations of the main arms helped the cruisers avoid them and destroy them at least partly. While some ships were fighting against ion cannons and hyper-hornets, the others surrounded Zurg Tower and lasered. Two cruisers and a transportation ship headed to the part they knew the ground doors to the main dungeons were situated. Quite easily the arrested were saved, although they were in a bad condition after maltreat. However, at some point Zurg's forces increased and he hit back the rangers with his weapons. But the rangers had got what they wanted, so there was no need to wage wars any longer. They knew that they could not defeat the whole arsenal of Planet Z with this kind of troops, so the retreat began. Zurg was left to lick his wounds; the battle had been still a great loss for him. In addition, now there spooked the fact that his dreams of being the ruler of the whole galaxy were destroyed again. No landanah, no new energy, no supremacy. A horrible bluster filled the half-bombarded tower, "Curse you, Buzz Lightyear, and you, the one whose name will be never said aloud here! I'll get you, wherever you go, you won't be safe, I swear that!"

--------------------

 After the happenings, life soon normalised back to its dull state. The mining in Deneveria was restarted, the work continued. Zarah was kept for a while in the med lab of Star Command base, but she healed physically up soon. Yet, her mind was not ameliorated. She was deeply depressed long after she had started her job again. People came to ask sometimes about the adventure, but all this was just hypocritical cajolery, that did not bring her any true friends. Her energy supply project advanced in a breeze, she discharged all her sorrow and pain into it. One day G'Deneb was invited to the Intergalactic Research Symposium on Capital Planet to demonstrate the functions of her invention. It was an extreme success, but in the middle of the clapping professors, she felt nothing but emptiness and stampede of her mind. 

-------

 Weeks later, in one of the suburbs near a small boscage on Capital Planet, in her new single-family house, Zarah was preparing to sleep. An enormously hard day was behind her. She felt her eyes tacky as she pulled the curtains in front of the large living-room window. She took a little observation outside just before the sleep would overcome her. A cold, pale half moon allowed the forest and the high cliffs in front of it bathe in gloomy light. She felt the bitter loneliness again as the soulless moon seemed to be her only company. As during this amount of years, she had been solitary... 

 She winced from her thoughts as she saw something stirring on the cliff. She was quite ascertain that she had seen a black figure there. "No, I'm imagining things. I'm too tired. I'd better just go to the bedroom. It's cold here, anyways." So she put the curtains over the window, switched off the lights and let the whole house sink into the darkness.

 Outside the chill continued its eternal being, the ground gradually getting covered with frost. The wan light of the moon was there to create eerie glow onto the stones and among the trees. There, up on the silent cliff, sat a black figure on a rock. The shadow stared at the house below, its now murky windows that still a quarter ago had been full of life. The figure sighed and let a hoar cloud in the air. Before leaving his place, he gave one last look at the house, the last farewell...

"I love you, Zarah... Some day, maybe someday we'll meet again... It was a risk to come this far, just to see your distant existence, but I had to see you one last time. Only there are now the shadows of my heart... from those shadows I'll see your smile, the one last smile you gave me..."

**...NOT THE END...**


End file.
